Messages in wax become promises that can't last, as the empty tablets from Pompeii in the Naples museum attest. The ephemeral qualities of wax make it an appropriate metaphor for love, which is what the poem inside is about. Wax was also commonly used, by men and women, as a depilatory in Ancient Rome. Even as a depilatory, its function is only temporary. The book itself is a false promise: instead of sweet smelling wax, an odorless plastilene is in its place on which the poem is printed with linotype in Times Roman. When Bologna was a Roman city it was known as Bononia.