The Bronze Crown

PREFACE

PREFACE

Jesi, the birthplace of Emperor Frederick II of Swabia, returns being the stage of the adventures of the young scholar Lucia Balleani, in the second episode of the trilogy The Printer. Love and death, esotericism and reason, good and bad. These are just some of the ingredients that give rhythm to this new investigation, focused on the mysterious disappearance of the bronze crown, once placed above the rampant lion of the main of Jesi palace, that of the Signoria. With skilful alchemy, Vignaroli intertwines past and present, through the parallel events of the protagonists of the present day and of the homonymous ancestors. An attractive lady and haughty regent of the Aesina republic, Lucia Baldeschi is divided between the obligations of reason of state and the love for the fugitive knight, the brave leader Andrea Franciolini.

Between history and legend, the action ranges from the severe buildings and the dark secret passages of a subterranean Jesi, to the open countryside of its earldom, populated by shepherds and monks by day and animated by magical rites during the moonlight. Then there are the palace intrigues, the feuds between the lords, and the battles: those among armies and against pirates, from Urbino to Senigallia, up to some of the most suggestive gorges of the Apennines. Places and distinctive features of an era, the sixteenth century, characterized by lights and shadows, divided between the cult of reason and the practice of esotericism and of which the characters of the novel are the faithful mirror. In demeanour, as well as in strengths and weaknesses. In their footsteps, between sensational discoveries and brilliant intuitions, the quarrelsome lovers, Lucia and Andrea, of the twenty-first century Jesi will come to the truth in the sign of timeless love.

Marco Torcoletti