The Shadow Of The Bell Tower. Stefano Vignaroli

      Stefano Vignaroli

      The Printer

      The shadow of the bell tower

      Translation by Fatima Immacolata Pretta

      NOVEL

      Preface

      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

      Introduction

      After publishing three thriller/police genre novels, I found it almost impossible to approach to the historical novel. But my passion for the history of my city has triggered the right spring in me to tackle this new work. It’s obvious that characters and facts, while taking inspiration from truly documented historical events, are largely pure fantasy. I have deliberately left the names of places and important Jesi families unchanged, just to make the narrative as plausible as possible. If I have succeeded in my intention, which is that of every writer, to interest the reader and keep him glued to the pages of the book until the last word, the public will judge it. I have done my best, and to the readers the task of judging.

      The story takes place in Jesi during the Renaissance, rich in art and culture, where new and sumptuous palaces are rising on the ruins of the ancient Roman city.

      The young Lucia Baldeschi is the granddaughter of an evil Cardinal, weaver of obscure plots aimed at centralizing both temporal and ecclesiastical power in his own hands. Lucia, a girl with a strong intelligence, becomes a friend of a printer, Bernardino, with whom she shared a passion for the revival of the arts, sciences and culture, which are characterizing the period throughout Italy. She will find herself caught between the duty to obey her uncle, who made her grow up and educate in the palace in the absence of her parents, the passionate love for Andrea Franciolini, son of the People’s Capitan and designated victim of the Cardinal’s tyranny.

      The story is also told through the eyes of Lucia Balleani, a young scholar descendent of the noble family. In 2017, exactly 500 years after the events, she discovered ancient documents in the family palace, and reconstructed the complex history of which traces had been lost.

      Chapter 1

      Magic is not witchcraft

      (Paracelsus)

      Bernardino knew well that he lived in times when it was really dangerous to give the press a text without having obtained the ecclesiastical imprimatur. If, moreover, the text was blasphemous and offensive to the official Church, spreading doctrines contrary to it, one risked the burning, not only of the printed books, but also of the author and the publisher. His printshop, in Via delle Botteghe¹ , was fine. The century tenth sixth had just begun and Bernardino had made himself known as a printer throughout Italy, for having replaced mobile wooden printing fonts with lead ones, which were much more resistant and durable. With the same "clichet" he was able to print a thousand copies, against the three hundred that his predecessors of the German school printed with the wooden "stereotypes", even if manipulating that metal caused him a few health problems. He had taken, over thirty years earlier, the printshop of Federico Conti, from Verona, who had made his fortune in Jesi, creating the first all-Italian printed edition of the Divine Comedy by the great poet Dante Alighieri. Conti had in short reached the peak of his fortune, just as he had fallen into disgrace. Bernardino had taken advantage of this and had bought the wonderful printshop for a pittance. With the calm and patience of those who came from the Jesi countryside - Bernardino was originally from Staffolo - he had made his business growing to the highest levels, without ever coming into conflict with the authorities, always honoured and revered. Until then, the most important work to which he had dedicated himself was “History of Jesi, from the origins to the birth of Frederick II”, based on oral tradition and on historical documents, ancient manuscripts, contracts, maps and anything else that was kept in the palaces of the noble families of Jesi, Franciolini, Santoni and Ghislieri. He worked with Pietro Grizio on the writing of the work; even though he was not a real writer, by dint of preparing drafts for printing, he had in fact become very familiar with the Italian language. A work that he had not yet completed and which would be printed by his successors in 1578, after considerable work of revisiting and finishing. A work that would have been for a long time the most important historical source on the city of Jesi, and from which would have taken inspiration, after about two centuries and more, the Baldassini for his “Historical Memoirs of the ancient and royal city of Jesi” and the Annibaldi for his “Guide of Jesi”, appeared even in the early years of the twentieth century. A great and important work, still in progress, left in abeyance to publish a booklet commissioned by a little more than twenty-year-old girl. What went through Bernardino’s mind to print a pamphlet dedicated to the pagan cult of the Mother Goddess and to treatments with medicinal herbs? The chief Inquisitor of the city, Cardinal Artemio Baldeschi, could have broken into his shop at any moment, perhaps instigated by some other printer jealous of his successes. And all this to do the Cardinal’s niece, Lucia Baldeschi, a favour. At fifty years old, had he lost his head for that damsel?

      No, unlikely. I certainly couldn’t manage to sustain a night of love with a young filly, even if... Even if the mere idea of being able to touch her hands excited him a bit, but he drove those urges back into the innermost corners of his mind.

      In return for printing the manual, the young “witch” had promised Bernardino an effective cure for the sciatica that had been afflicting him for years