Читать книгу The Shadow Of The Bell Tower - Stefano Vignaroli, Stefano Vignaroli - Страница 5

Jesi won’t look the same when you will read “The Printer”. The first episode of the trilogy, “The Shadow of the Bell Tower”, is the last novel written by Stefano Vignaroli: it tells the parallel events of the young and fascinating archivist Lucia Baldeschi and her homonymous ancestor, who lived 500 years before. To tie everything there is a mystery, and traces who hidden in the stones, architecture and historical texts of the city.

A fascinating and hypnotic novel. Without realizing it, the reader ends up assuming the scholar’s point of view, in whose eyes streets and buildings lose their austere and detached beauty, to become solemn witnesses of a gloomy past. Secret passages, woods infested with brigands, brave warriors and ruthless mercenaries, presumed witches and defenceless damsels, high prelates and friars, nobles and plebeians. They are those who populate and animate the action, in a constant crescendo of tension, in which the places are not the background, but become an integral and evocative part of a compelling narrative. A historical novel in every sense, above all for the author’s ability to bring back to life the customs and traditions of an entire society, that of Jesi. Yesterday, as today, it is rich in virtues but not without defects and cowardice. To which no one, not even the protagonist, so authentic and true, will be immune.

Marco Torcoletti