numenvia was founded in 2022 by Giuditta Pileri and Chris Tennant. Our passion is to connect people with the spirit of regions in Italy through the creators who call them home. You can read more about numen—the spirit of a place—and about how we build our tours at The Numenvia Way.
I was born in the hills south of Florence. I’ve always been fascinated by languages—in my first year of university I studied Latin, ancient Greek, and Sanskrit. I finished an MA in Linguistics and became a professor of Italian in Grenoble, France. Then I met Chris at a rock-climbing class in Grenoble, and we got married and moved to Oregon.
So much is different between the US and Italy. I love that in the US, I am free to be and become whoever I want. But I miss the conviviality and intimacy of life in Italy.
Since I moved to Oregon, I’ve been searching for ways to bring the essence of Italian life to North Americans. For a while, I taught cooking classes, with the goal not just of teaching technique, but of creating conviviality. Numenvia is where it all finally came together for me—a way to truly share the spirit of Italy with people who are not from there.
I was born in the US, but grew up in Vancouver, Canada. I spent way too much time in school, ending with a Ph.D. in social anthropology from Harvard. I’ve always been passionate about using technology to connect global audiences with local communities. I did my fieldwork with Mayan refugees in Guatemala, and wrote my dissertation as a hypermedia web showing relationships between people, and between people and the places they lived. Disillusioned with the elitism and parochialism of academia, I became a software engineer and entrepreneur.
Numenvia is about immersing people in the spirit of local places. Our tours are about relationships and doing and presence—the antithesis of the technology-mediated experiences that rule too much of our lives. My job is to use technology to introduce people to our creators—to share videos and pictures and stories about these places. It’s never the same as being there, but if I get it right, maybe we can show you enough that you’ll be able to feel a little of the numen yourself.
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