NOT ALL ITALIANS WERE/ARE IN THE MAFIA (or act like those from the Jersey Shore)

It has always been my belief, that writers of fictional works shouldn’t have an aggrandized agenda behind their writing; it has been my experience that those that did become ‘preachy,’ a place I never wanted to go. And yet I will admit, here and now, that part of my emphasis on Italian historical fiction is not only to throw a light on my own ancestral homeland, but in doing so, also hammer a crack in the perception that all Italians were or are in the Mafia, that if Italians should be noted for anything, it should be for their creative and artistic acumen, their ingenuity, and their passion for life.

The first names to roll off the tongue need little if any explanation…Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Donatello, Dante Alighieri, and Petrarch…all artists whether of the pen, the brush or the chisel, they are considered some of the greatest the world has ever produced…Italians all. There is of course that friend of da Vinci’s, one Galileo Galilei.

Disregarding the contributions during antiquity and of the early Romans—monumental as those contributions to humanity may be—there have been nineteen Italian Nobel Prize Winners; one in economics, one in chemistry, five in both physics (including Marconi and his development of radio transmission) and physiology/medicine each. Of the six who won a Nobel Prize in Literature, Giosuè Carducci (1835-1907) was a poet, noted historian, and an eminent orator. His work would be the standard for many successive and highly successful Italian poets to follow. Walking in the footsteps of some of the greatest literati of all time, Dante and Petrarch, Carducci’s work was considered cutting edge and, at times, extremist. One Italian, Ernesto Teodoro Moneta (1833-1918), was the recipient of the Nobel Prize in Peace for his commitment and the foundation of the “Lombard Union for peace and arbitration.”

It was Eugenio Barsanti (1821-1864) who invented the first internal combustion engine driven by gas and Tito Livio Burattini (1617-1681) who developed a system of measurement based on time upon which today’s International System of Units is based. A man many may be especially thrilled with is Antonio Benedetto Carpano (1764-1815) a distiller who became famous for inventing Vermouth and consequently the concept of an aperitif. It was an Italian, Giovanni Caselli (1815-1891) who invented the pantelgraph, the precursor to the fax and another, Bartolomeo Cristoforo di Francesco (1655-1731) who invented the piano. And who cannot help but send up a word of gratitude, Italo Marcioni, the Italian American who invented the ice cream cone. Maria Montessori (1870-1952) is forever remembered for her philosophies and teaching methods that are more utilized now than during her own era, and grow more and more popular every day.

There are currently more Italian opera singers than of any other nationality, except American, and a majority of those are of Italian heritage (such as my son).

Italian violins are considered the archetype of the instrument; the oldest violin, the greatest violin of all times, and the most famous violin were all made by Italian hands. My own grandfather, Michele Galiano Russo (born 1896 in Foggia, Italy, d 1966 Providence, RI) was a violin player and maker, one of which rests in the Smithsonian Institute (and pictured at left).

And where would any of us be without Marco Polo, Christopher Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci, and Giovanni da Verrazzano, to name but a few of the astounding Italian explorers.

It is estimated that since the beginning of the Mafia, its roots in the tenth or eleventh century Sicily, perhaps thirty to forty thousand Italians and Italian Americans have been involved in the crime organization that began as a form of family protection against the feudal lords and barons. Today, Italy’s population is cited at 60,483,521 making the percentage of those involved in the organization less than .05%, and that does not include the millions of Italian Americans equally unsullied by the most despicable of minorities.

Few movies or television shows have ‘glorified’ any of the great Italians mentioned above as they have the Mafia and, unfortunately, far too many opinions are cemented in these odious portrayals. I ask two things: read and learn about these extraordinary individuals (and the hundreds of others not mentioned) and speak of Italians if you will, if you must as this blog has proved, but speak of us con rispetto…with respect.

IN HONOR OF NFL DRAFT WEEK: (OR HOW A HISTORICAL FICTION WRITER GOT HER FOOTBALL FIX) GIUOCO DEL CALCIO FIORENTINO

When I’m deep into my work for a new book, whether it’s in the research stage or the writing stage, I typically take only one day off a week. From the end of August until the beginning of February, that day is most frequently Sunday, not however, because of any religious practices, but because…that’s football day.

Yes, as a person of extremes, one of my favorite escapes from the heavy, old, and staid tomes that I love so much is the sweaty, scream inducing, adrenaline firing sport that is football. How stunned—wonderfully surprised to galactical proportions—I was when I found, among the history of Florence that I was investigating for The King’s Agent—the very sport with which I schedule my life around for half the year.

Giuoco del Calcio Fiorentino is, in translation and reputation, the Florentine Kicking Game. In Italy, it is simply called calcio, translated as ‘kick’. The game was born, where it’s played still, in the courtyard of the Piazza Santa Croce in Florence, one of the most visited squares in all of Europe, a rectangle anchored by the Basilica Santa Croce, where the most illustrious of Florentines are buried. But unlike most European courtyards, you’ll find no statues or fountains or shrines holding the place of prominence in the center, just one large open square that becomes a 50 by 100m sand covered pitch. The oldest documentation of the game appears sometime in the early 16th century, with the official rules published in 1580, but it’s accepted that the sport most probably began a few decades earlier, in the late 15th century.

Upon close inspection, calling this sport ‘football’ or a ‘kick’ game is an understatement; no, it’s a washed out understatement. Giuoco del Calcio Fiorentino is a combination of soccer, rugby, boxing, wrestling, and head-butting. These guys laugh at ultimate fighters. The object of the game is to score a goal by kicking, throwing or placing a ball in the opposing team’s goal area, one that spans the entire width of the playing field. The opposition to the objective? Twenty-seven other players that are ready, willing, and able to use whatever horrific physical obstructions at their disposal to stop it. What results is any number of one-on-one grapple bouts breaking out all over the field, brutal tactics employed to do whatever it takes to prohibit the other team from forwarding the ball toward the goal.

Historically, the game was played by aristocrats…counts, dukes and even former popes…and much of the violence on the pitch was a reflection of some off-field slight…a stolen girlfriend, a political backstab. The game and ill-feelings, having birthed such violence, has done very little to stem it, in fact, nothing at all.

As in those bygone days, the teams are formed within the four ancient quarters of the city: the (red) Rossi from Santa Maria Novella, the Verdi (green) out of San Giovanni, the (white) Bianchi hail from Santo Spirito, and the Azzurri (light blue) are from the quarter of Santa Croce. Though the sport took a two century hiatus, since 1930 a three match tournament has taken place every June.

Taking their well-being in their own hands, there are (ironically) eight referees on the course during the whole of the 50 minute-match. Their duty is to enforce no more than a couple of rules: there is no kicking to the head (yes, which means all other kicking of one’s opponents is allowed) and there is no sucker-punching (defined as a hit from behind). All other seemingly vicious maneuvers—choking, head-butting, and throwing sand in an opponent’s eyes—is fair game and necessary to score a goal (caccia).

With this my fourth book, but the second set in the land of my ancestors, and my current work-in-progress (a trilogy no less) set as well in the land of breathtaking landscapes and lip-smacking wine, I yearn to walk the rolling hills of Tuscany, to step upon the same cobbles as da Vinci and Michelangelo…and to watch a huge group of incredibly well-built men—naked to the waist!—try to get a ball past a goal line while surrounded by glorious historical buildings. For this particular historical novelist, it just doesn’t get much better.

One could make the case that I included this scene—this relic form of the game I love so much—as a bit of self-indulgence, and it wouldn’t be a completely erroneous statement. However, because of the timing of its appearance in the story it does so much to establish the character that is Battista della Palla, a factual historical character whom I like to describe as a patriotic plunderer and religious rogue, the male protagonist that steers the plot through all its incredible twists and turns. It reveals early on his eagerness to take risks, his ability to make split seconds decisions and the nerve to see them through. It puts him in the league with such men as Indiana Jones, Captain James T. Kirk, and Luke Skywalker.

Who would have ever thought I could use my beloved football for character development in a historical setting? Talk about having your sport and writing it too.

BLENDING HISTORICAL FICTION, A LITERARY CLASSIC AND A VIDEO GAME--THE KING'S AGENT--A TEASER

As my latest release becomes the topic of the blogger discussions, a common curiosity rises concerning the coalescence of historical fiction, Dante's Divine Comedy and the video game The Legend of Zelda. I'm thrilled that the majority of feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, including this from the Publishers Weekly starred review: 'Morin skillfully blends historical fiction and fantasy in surprising ways. She draws effortlessly upon influences ranging from Dante to Raiders of the Lost Ark, and the authority of her presentation makes the world she’s created come alive.'

But for those who haven't read it, there is still that skepticism, that skewed look that begs the question: how. I can think of no better concise answer than to give an excerpt, a teaser, if you will. Enjoy!

***********

Battista took Aurelia’s hand, gave it a squeeze, and stepped forward.

Beyond the egress, the groans became screams as air rushed at them, hitting them square in the face, pulling the snood from Aurelia’s head, lifting her skirts and Battista’s hair. Aurelia raised her arms as if to block out the sound…defend against the onslaught of wind. Battista squinted to see what lay before them. The walls of the chamber opened up, becoming a long rectangular room with what appeared to be no more than a black abyss awaiting them at the end.

Taking a few more tentative steps forward, Battista raised the lantern.

That’s when they saw them.

On each side of the room, statues stood guard alongside the walls, tall, pitiable giants. Of dark gray stone stained blacker with mold, their gnarled, open mouths cried out their pain. Whether men or women it was hard to tell beneath the hooded robes shrouding their faces…in the hopeless, helpless expressions they all wore. As the air pummeling them rushed through the statues’ mouths, it scraped against their jagged teeth, the contorted lips, filling the space with the sound of anguish itself.

Battista turned his face away, desolated by the statues’ song, the misery evading him body and soul. Upon Aurelia’s face, now wet with tears, he saw his own heartbreak.

“The sorrow of it.” She hung her head, now curtained by hair unbridled with the force of the wind.

“Don’t weep,” Battista begged of her, for he could not manage her sorrow as well. “It is not—”

She grabbed his hand, eyes bulging out at him.

“Weep. Weep,” she repeated with bizarre elation. “Il Commedia. Your copy. Give it to me,” she demanded. Her own leather-bound volume, that given to her by Giovanni, she had left in her large bag with Frado.

Battista pulled the book from his pouch and gave it to her, watching her as she urgently turned pages, bracing her back to the rushing air, preventing it from sweeping the light tome out of her hands.

Her page flapping held; her intense gaze rose to his face. “We are in Hell.”

Battista longed to laugh at the irony of it.

“‘Here sighs, complaints, and deep groans sounded through the starless air, so that it made me weep at first. I will be your guide and lead you through an eternal space where you will hear the desperate shouts, will see the ancient spirits in pain, so that each one cries out for a second death…’”

She read to him, though there was no need; they had come to the right place, as much as he may wish to deny it. But the first piece of the triptych would not be in this room; it would be folly indeed to think they could overcome this challenge easily.
He took her free hand as she tucked the book to her chest with the other, and led them forward once more.

The contingent of screaming statues led them onward, the expanding sound gaining momentum, an audible, devouring torture. Battista hunched his shoulders against the onslaught of sound and air, scrunching his face and eyes.

“Close your mind!” Aurelia yelled over the cacophony, repeating herself at his puzzled glance. “Close your mind to it. Put yourself…your being…in another, better place. You can do it, I know you can.”

She waggled the hand he held in his in encouragement and pulled him to a stop. In their stillness, he contemplated her words. Such a strange suggestion and yet he found his spirit taking flight, returning to his mother’s home, at the table with her and his sister, laughing so riotously as to bring tears to the eyes. He opened his eyes, thanking Aurelia with a smile, wondering yet again of her truth—and stepped forward.

THE PATH OF THE KING'S AGENT: A MAGICAL ITALIAN TOUR

The King’s Agent is many stories in one, with layers of both the tangible and of the spiritual, cerebral, and emotional. That it is an adventurous quest—a search for an ancient relic—is one of the most concrete facets of this multi-dimensional story. As a very visual writer, as an imaginative soul, I am fortunate enough to so immerse myself in the places my stories take me that my research becomes the airplane upon which my fancies take flight. This quest—this story—unlike any other I’ve written, took my on a journey I will never forget. I’m thrilled to have this opportunity to give you a glimpse into that journey.

The three major challenges of The King’s Agent take place in locations that resemble and symbolize the three canticles of Dante’s Divine Comedy…Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise. We begin, of course, in Hell.

Dante Alghieri’s descriptions of his allegorical locations of Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise are considered, to this day, to be among the greatest ever written. So great, in fact, that visual artists, including the great Salvador Dahli, have been inspired by them since their inception. The illustration here shows the specific nature of Hell lying below a mountain top palazzo.

Though obviously fictional as I’ve depicted it, the Palazzo Prato, in actuality a sixteenth century palace, fits not only the geographical location perfectly but also provides the quintessential structural image befitting the worst level of Dante’s Divine Comedy. The Prato area of Italy (see map) is an ancient one, prehistoric in fact, with evidence of life since the Paliolithic times and later colonized by the Etruscans. Today it is a communal city and the Capitol of the Prato Provence. Between Dante’s words and the images found, it was an explosive combustion for my imagination to turn it into the setting for the Inferno.

The Roads Between: The Via Francigena is an ancient road between Rome and Canterbury passing through England, France, Switzerland, and Italy. It was one of the most important roads throughout the Medieval and Renaissnce periods as the path for pilgrims.

From the burning depths of Hell, we can but hope to earn our way to Purgatory, and such was the journey of Battista and Aurelia, the protagonists of The King’s Agent, so it is to Purgatory we now go. From the language and imagery of Dante’s Purgatory, I found my mind’s eye picturing an almost infinite cave maze. How astounded I was when I found the Caves of Pastene, in Italian, Grotte di Pastena.

Baron Carlo Franchetti discovered the caves in 1926 within the Ausoni Mountains and people began touring them less than a year later. The area in which they are located is considered one of the most picturesque of Ciociaria, where the inclemency of the geological events led to the formation of atypical landscapes…where bizarre forms of erosion and karst plains related to ancient lakes. The marvels of this underground world include beatific formations of stalactites and stalagmites, columns, lakes, thunderous waterfalls, and draperies of calcite. The room depicted in the picture, The Hall of the Weeping Willow, was especially awe inspiring as well as perfectly constructed to illustrate Dante’s words. The name of this hall was extracted from the center shape of a column vaguely resembling a willow created by a peculiar union of a stalagmite and a stalactite.

For those worthy, for the best of us, the belief contends that Heaven awaits. But there too, Battista and Aurelia found a challenge. Therefore, my task was to find a place of great yet nonetheless imposing beauty. The Dragon Castle was the archetypal location.

Via Aurelia: The Roman Empire's Lost Highway: Constructed around the year 241 BC by the Roman censor C. Aurelius Cotta, the Via Aurelia was to serve Roman Expansion, swift military movements, and quick communication between Roman settlements. It resulted in a vast increase in trade among Italian cities and Rome. The road was quickly expanded to allow two chariots to pass and distances were marked with milestones.

The Castello della Dragonara is located on an islet of land in the province of Genoa, in the town of Camoglia. Though it has been the object of much study, even today its exact dates of construction are undetermined. Built into the side of the cliff at the center of the village, the castle was no doubt originally intended as a lookout and was certainly smaller than its current size.

Through the centuries the castle was used for defensive purposes as well and, as far as the validity of the documents allow, appears to have been enlarged and reinforced on numerous occasions. It was attacked on an equal number of instances, the most notable of which were conducted by Gian Galeazzo Visconti, the duke of Milan, and Nicolo Fieschi, both in the 14th centuries. The powerful fortress often served as a place of refuge for the villager during the many pirate attacks. Twice it was destroyed and twice it was rebuilt; always it rose up from the very tip of the shore, from the very edge of the cliff, to rise up to the heavens above it. When not in use as a stronghold, Castello della Dragonara was utilized as a governmental meeting house, not only by the rulers of the town, but by the government of Genoa.



I won’t, of course, reveal how Battista and Aurelia fair on this magnificent journey, that you’ll have to discover for yourself, but I can tell that these three amazing locations are not the only stops on their journey. There is the beauty of Mantua, the magnificence of Florence, and no Italian adventure would be complete without a stop in the glory that is Rome (and with Michelangelo as guide no less).

Yes, this book took me on a greater journey in a sense than any other I’ve written before. I am delighted to have shared some of the highlights with you. Buon viaggio e buono fortuna (safe journey and good luck)!

FLORENCE: THE LAND OF MY ANCESTRY; THE BIRTHPLACE OF MY MUSE

The adventurous characters (both real and imagined) in The King’s Agent travel hither and yon across the middle landscape of that strangely shaped country known as Italy; from Rome, to the mountains of Ciociaria, to Camogli onto the sparkling west coast. But their story begins and ends and returns now again—for succor and respite—to Florence. So it is to Florence today we go.

But first I must tell of my own connection, one I didn’t know existed until after I wrote this book. Yes, in that glorious small speck of time between completing one book and starting another, I sent out a query to an organization that researches surnames. It took them a while to complete the appropriate investigation, during which time I developed the basic idea for my next work in progress, a trilogy also set in Florence on the birth of the female Renaissance artist. It would seem as if my fascination for the ancient city was firmly entrenched in my psyche. The information, when it came from the research institute, wonderfully illustrated with my family crest on parchment looking paper, declared that the origin of my family was, most probably… Florence. My ancestors have been calling, and I am answering that call as best I can.

Julius Caesar named the city ‘Florentina’ (meaning ‘flourishing’) when founded in 59 BC as a military retirement haven. How portentous the name would come to be. Yet there is evidence of occupation dating back to prehistoric times. Caesar developed the city, true, with the assistance of the great Roman general and statesman Lucius Cornelius Sulla, from a military state of mind, one that is still in evidence even today. Situated on a major artery leading to Rome, the Via Cassia (still known by that name in the heart of Rome, as the A1 for hundreds of miles leading throughout the country) it was rich with fertile farmland. The combination proved successful and it soon grew from a small Roman settlement to a lively commercial epicenter.

Enclosed in a wall approximately 1800 meters long, the city is rectangular in shape, and developed, as did most cities initially Roman, with straight roads and right angles. The main roads led to four towered gates and the Arno—a major river flowing in from the west coast—at first lay outside its gates. Located at the apex of main roads and a large river, found Florence growing rapidly, commercial activity and trade thrived, as did the city.

Christianity made its way to Florence in the second century and by the next, churches began to spring up like the shoots of spring flowers. Today there are close to forty churches and it is these religious houses that are partially responsible for the birth of the Renaissance.

Like so many other locations in Italy, Florence was prey to the pillaging of the Barbarian invasions of the Dark Ages. And though the city built more interior city walls, they too fell to the Lombards, the dark period of the city’s history.

But from out of the darkness, came the light.

By the 8th century, a feudal system was established in Florence, in truth throughout Tuscany, and the city became a county of the Holy Roman Empire, changes that were both a blessing and curse. More city walls were constructed, more gates for protection and grandiosity, and over the next few centuries Florence continued to prosper and its population to grow exponential; a flurry of activity leading to one of human evolution’s greatest eras, the Renaissance.

Any great accomplishment or movement or change in the direction of human kind, does not come about because of one circumstance or the efforts of one human, but from a conglomeration of magnificent events…the perfect storm. Such was the Renaissance and its birth in a city named Florence.

Its inception can be found, in part, in the politics of the city. A strife-ridden communal system gave way to an oligarchy, a system that would rule the city on and off for hundreds of years. The greatest of all the oligarchies belong to the Medici family (who are not only minor players in The King’s Agent, but who will be taking more center stage in my current works-in-progress). Yes, these were men who had undeniable, dare I say obnoxious, certainty in their superiority, but they were also gifted with open curious minds whose craving for knowledge and truth and beauty brought new and enlightening concepts to within the city walls. Harking back to the teachings of the Greeks and the Romans, they revived the value of the human being and, within this eagerness for knowledge and enlightenment, Humanism was born. Man came to consider himself God’s greatest creation and combined with a craving for rational thought and an affirmation of the natural environment in which he existed. A distinctive characteristic of Humanism was the glory of art, of man’s ability to manipulate media into whatever form they chose.

The rise of Humanism, the profusion of churches—churches which needed pious artwork to compete with the glory of its architecture—combined with the unflattering urge of humans to outdo each other, brought together all the necessary ingredients for an artistic explosion: fertile temperament, a surplus of venues, and the need for the leading citizens to become the leading citizen, producing a plethora of patrons vying for the best artists of all sorts. It was a collision that had never happened before, one that some hope will happen once again (one that I personally believe took place in the 1960s).

But it was not only painters and sculptors that Florence and its rebirth produced, though there were those a plenty, to name a few: Giotto di Bondone, Masaccio, Domenic Ghirlandaio, Perugino, Michelangelo, Raphael, Botticelli, Titian, and, of course, Leonardo da Vinci. And those are just the upper echelon of painters. Architecture reigned supreme as well under the skillful hands of Brunelleschi, Leone Alberti, Palladio, and Bramante. And their glory was all written about with equal talent by the writers of the age: Petrarch, Boccaccio, Luigi Pulci, and Poliziano. In fact, so many of Italy’s greatest writers and poets were connected to Florence, its dialect came to be known as the official Italian language, beginning with the appearance of Dante’s Il Divina Commedia, a powerful component of the multilayered tale that is The King’s Agent. The power of Florence was felt in almost every facet of Renaissance life. The currency of the city, the gold Florin, came to be the most valued, not only in Italian but to all the corners of Europe, from Hungary to Britain to Bruges, and everywhere in between, and helped to develop industry across the continent.

The King’s Agent brings us to what is considered the end of the Renaissance, but it will not be the last you hear of it—and of Florence—from the tip of my pen.

MICHELANGELO: A SHORT HISTORY OF A LONG, MAGNIFICENT LIFE

To sum up a life such as Michelangelo Buonarotti’s in the length of a blog post seems not only an impossible challenge but the epitome of an understatement, yet if there was ever a life worthy of such an endeavor, it is his.

Michelangelo (correctly pronounced mi-keh-LAHN-geh-lo, not michael-angelo) is perhaps one of the most well-known artists, the man who struggled for years to complete one of the ultimate pieces of art ever created. But in truth, Michelangelo’s struggles began almost at the beginning of his life and they were to mold that life as distinctly as he himself would carve his great statues. When I uncovered his connection to my main historical character in The King’s Agent, I felt it a blessing to be able to research this gifted man’s life and a privilege to include him in one of my books.

Born on March 6, 1475 in Casentino, Italy, outside the walls of the grand city of Florence, his father was Lodivico di Lionardo Buonarroti-Simoni, the Podesta of Caprese and Chiusi. His mother, Francesca di Neri di Miniato del Sera, gave birth to five sons in all, all within an eight year span. It killed her, and it was a loss that would shape the entirety of Michelangelo’s life.

Because of his mother’s ill health, Michelangelo was suckled by a wet nurse. The loving woman, nurturing in even sense of the word, was one Signora Topolino, a stonecutter’s wife living in the rocky hills of Pontasseive. Michelangelo found such encompassing affection from this woman and her family that he would return to them, for days and months at a time, throughout the entire course of his life. It is a great myth—one that might have started from Michelangelo’s own lips—that he ingested stone dust along with the woman’s milk, binding him and his life to worship of the stone.

Michelangelo was six when his mother passed and, from that moment on, he lived a life of solitude; his father was consumed by his grief and incapable of caring for the children Francesca left behind. Lodivico’s sister, Michelangelo’s Aunt Cassandra, took over the care of the household, but she was a cold if efficient woman, seeing to the boys’ needs but with little love in the act. Nonna Alessandra, Michelangelo’s grandmother, offered some affection, but it was not enough to fill the emptiness created by the loss of his mother. None of the adults cared much to keep track of the young boy’s comings and goings and Michelangelo became a child of the streets, an urchin as prone to mischief as he was to curiosity.

At the age of 13, his father sent Michelangelo to school in the city proper, under the auspices of Francesco da Urbino, but he neglected all of his studies save for drawing. And though his father and uncle tried, literally, to beat the predilection for art out of the child, they were vastly unsuccessful, eventually capitulating to Michelangelo’s truth and fostering his artistic achievements.

In 1488, at the age of thirteen, he entered the studio of Domenico and Davide Ghirlandaio, elite members of the large Florentine artistic community. There he learned the cutting edge techniques of the age and studied the works of such masters as Giotto, Donatello, Ghiberti, and others, those considered the founding fathers of the Renaissance. In 1489, he became a pupil at the School of Sculpture headed by the great Bertoldi, who was himself a student of the master Donatello. Here his obsession with sculpture would be secured and here he would come to the attention of one Lorenzo de’ Medici, Il Magnifico. His life would be forever changed for it.

From this moment on, Michelangelo’s life would be one of learning, not only artistically, but philosophically and of self-enlightenment, present in the studio of Lorenzo during the deep discussions of Paganism and Humanism. He studied the human anatomy by sneaking into the morgue of a church and dissected the bodies awaiting burial (it is why he was able to recreate them with such precision). He learned too the harshness of life, the confusing truth of his sexual orientation, and the vagaries of living in Italian states that went to war with the same frequency and glee with which they sat down to a vast meal.

Michelangelo was an ardent patriot to his Tuscan lands, and took part in the many revolutions that plagued the city, pulling on his loyalties to the Medici and the city in a gut wrenching struggle. He became both adored and vilified by the popes of the Catholic Church, heartbroken by both men and women, and though he was forever surrounded by great friends, talented colleagues, and lovers, he remained a solitary man, rarely speaking of what he felt most deeply.

And yet, in all that I learned of him, as he became for me not the subject of my work, but a living, breathing being with whom I spent many hours of many days, it was his intellect and his vulnerability that touched me the most deeply. It has been one of the great delights of my life to ‘spend that time’ with him while crafting The King’s Agent. And I am thrilled to be including him in my current work in progress, but there he is a younger man, in the throes of artistic and personal awakening, feisty in his arrogant youth.



Michelangelo’s list of works is breathtaking, astounding, too vast to be accounted for here, and he is considered to be one of the greatest artists of all time. He was a sculptor, painter, architect, engineer and poet. His best known work, that of the paintings on the ceiling and the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel, catapulted him into the realm of the immortal icon, and yet it was his other work, that with the stone, creations like the great David (originally called the Giant), with which he cared the most, with which he identified. Were one to encounter the painter of the Sistine Chapel and ask him what he did, he would answer forthrightly, “I am a sculptor.”

The relationship between the lead male character, Battista della Palla—a true historical character—and Michelangelo is as I’ve drawn it within The King’s Agent, one of emotional succor of the most innocent kind, a bond between an older and younger man of a father and son nature, each yearning to fulfill the emptiness and lack of the one, each more than willing to fulfill that emptiness for the other. It was, perhaps, the most long lasting and satisfying bond of the magnificent Michelangelo’s life. The love they bear for each other is just one of the many reasons for the love I bear them both.

EXTRATERRESTRIAL SYMBOLS IN RENAISSANCE ART: THE CONTROVERSY OF THE KING'S AGENT

Battista della Palla, the lead character in The King’s Agent, was a real man, born in Florence in 1489. During his full and prodigious life, he spent many years at the French court, forming an unbreakable bond with King Francois I and his sister Marguerite, one predicated, in part, on their mutual love of art. What became of that friendship is a role Battista would accept as his own for the rest of his life, that of Francois’ art agent, instructed to procure work by the Italian masters that Francois craved at any cost. In exchange, Francois promised Battista his sword—his military might—should Battista’s homeland of Florence ever require it. Battista fulfilled Francois’ requests, most every one of them, most often by nimble pilfering when legal acquisition failed him. In consequence, Francois I and his art agent Battista della Palla could easily be touted as the men directly responsible for what we now call one of the greatest museums in the world, the Louvre. Therefore, with a valid logical syllogism, it can be said that this astounding collection, visited by hundreds of thousands of people every year, began with stolen art.

All of the above is true, but it is not the greatest controversy proposed in The King’s Agent. Not by a long shot.

In The King’s Agent, Battista is commissioned with yet another acquisition by the King of France, but this one is like no other. Even the directive itself—the message of instruction—is couched in vague language and dictates that Battista find him an ancient relic, one crafted in the age of the Greek gods, before the time of Jesus, a relic which, “is said to possess the power I need to reign victorious.” This is but the beginning of the most bizarre quest Battista and his banda (band of men) have ever endured.

The trouble begins with the path to the relic, one whose stepping stones are laid with clues in the great art of the age. The quest itself is many layered, one painting must be found, which will lead to a triptych—a grouping of three paintings that create a single image—that will then lead to the relic. The discussion and search for these paintings, leads the art connoisseurs (for thieves they may be, but art experts they were first) to an exposure of paintings unlike any others they have seen; paintings which include symbolism of unearthly life. As outlandish as the notion may seem, it is not one of my imagination’s
device, but one revealed to me during my research.

For the information in the remainder of this blog, I ask not belief, only the belief in possibility. I will not make a thesis on the support of ancient astronauts, but have chosen merely to accentuate works that may be used in evidence of such.

In an effort to stray from any spoilers, I will discuss the paintings highlighted in The King’s Agent out of context. To see how they affect the story, will take a reading of the work itself.

The painting that has, more than any other, sparked discussion among ufologists—and one of the first to make an appearance in The King’s Agent’s is Madonna col Bambino e San Giovannino (The Madonna with Child and Saint John). The painting hangs in the government palace in Florence—the Palazzo Vecchio—and is most often attributed to Sebastiano Mainardi. It is the image in the top left corner that is the most intriguing…the hardest to explain, an image that one might call an ‘air ship’.

Impressions to note when studying this painting include the man and the dog on the far hill, both with eyes attentively pointed upward toward the apparition. In an article written in 1996 by Daniele Bedini (an expert in Design Space and Space Technology, an instructor at The Royal College of Art (London), ISU (Strasbourg), and the IED (Istituto Europeo di Design in Rome) and published in Notiziario UFO, Bedini wrote, “we clearly see the presence of an airborne object leaden in color and inclined to port, sporting a "dome" or "turret", apparently identifiable as an oval-shaped moving flying device.”

In other journals, it is also theorized that the placement of Mary in relation to the two babies and the unidentifiable object is as a protector, to keep each from seeing and the other.

The next work is my personal favorite, not for its connection to the subject matter but for its composition and color. The Annunciation was painted by Carlo Crivelli in 1486. Unlike the hundreds, actually thousands, of other paintings dealing with the same theme, one of the most popular in all of religious art, Crivelli’s annunciation—by definition, the announcement by the angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary of her conception of Christ—is committed not by an angel, but by a disc shaped object in the sky casting a beam of light down upon Mary on Earth. There is a great deal more activity taking place in this painting, people pointing at the main activity, and more cryptic symbolism whose meaning seems to have been lost. Crivelli’s Annunciation hangs in the National Gallery in London.

In The Bible and Flying Saucers (Avon Books, 1978) author Barry H. Downing wrote, “Where did this UFO come from, according to the Biblical account? The heavens were ‘opened' and the Spirit seems to have descended from this 'opening.' This idea of an 'opening' represents an example of the 'mythological' expression...The 'opening' represents an example of the Bible cosmology...The 'opening' suggests that in our 'three-decker universe' a 'door' leads from our world below to the world above where the angels live in heaven.”

Rows of round, hovering objects fill the sky in The Miracle of the Snow: Foundation of Santa Maria Maggiore by Masolino da Panicale, which hangs in the Museo di Capodimonte in Naples, Italy. The work was originally part of the altar painting for the Church of Saint Mary in Rome. It reminds me of nothing so much as an early Renaissance rendition of Orwell’s War of the Worlds. The painting depicts Jesus and Mary hovering above the Earth on a very solid type of cloud, lenticular clouds in fact, those that are flat and circular, and accompanied by an armada of the same type of saucer-like objects stretching back beyond the horizon.

The original legend of this painting reads that in Rome sometime in the 4th century, during the reign of Pope Liberius (352-366), both the Pope and the Patrician Giovanni Patrizio were visited by an apparition of the Virgin Mary during which she entreated them to build a church in her honor and that they would know the location of where the church should be when they awoke the next morning.

The next morning—a hot summer morning—on Esquino Hill, the outline of the church lay on the ground in snow. Despite the heat, the snow lines remained until the church was staked, when it quickly melted.

To reiterate, I did not want to reveal what part these very real works of art play in The King’s Agent in order to maintain the integrity of the unique story.

The amount of information on extraterrestrials, more prodigiously known as ancient astronauts, is overwhelming (and not just from those society might label as ‘quacks’, but from some of the greatest, most educated, intelligent, and reputed minds of our time). And though it plays a minor part of a complex story, the particular notion that evidence of alien existence can be found in profusion throughout the art of man throughout time, is but one of the inspirations in my writing of The King’s Agent, but without question, the most controversial of them all.