The Eleventh Sibyl

Italy, 2010. In the most picturesque town of Apennines, Norcia, life seems to flow with its steady, ordinary pace. Yet, on a cold wintry night, something suddenly happens at an antique dealer's stall: a book, a golden sun impressed on its cover, raises what appears to be a sinister call under the dim light cast by the streetlamps. A man takes the book. From its withered pages a story from a long-gone past comes to life again: the Sibyl's legend.

The man is no ordinary tourist, he is a researcher and historian. From this time on, his mind will start being haunted by the faceless shadow of the Sibyl, the evil prophetess and goddess who once lived, according to an old legend, in a cavern opening its gloomy jaws on the top of a desolate, remote cliff: Mount Sibyl.

Just old wives' tale, or an ominous truth? The belief in this legend was so strong that starting from the fifteenth century the place had achieved remarkable renown in France, Germany and other European countries; in 1930s, the Italian Fascists made attempts at breaking into the cave using explosive charges, in search of the eerie, divine queen.

A journey into an Italian mystery dating back to Roman times, a fiction intricately layered with research on history and ancient lore. A thread dazzingly unwinding throughout the centuries, up to the final confrontation with that very cliff, Mount Sibyl, which will unveil its long-guarded secret: a dreadful, unimaginable encounter with the divinity.

As writer Anna Brownell Jameson once wrote, «had I never visited Italy I think I should never have understood the word picturesque. The very air of Italy is embued with the spirit of ancient mythology».

If you love Italy and its picturesque sights, history and mysterious traditions, this book is for you.