"Pure Heresy" by Adriano Petta

Adriano Petta Pure Heresy historical novel originally published in Italy in December 2005 under the title Eresia Pura by STAMPA ALTERNATIVA (ISBN – 88-7226-904-0) outline & the 3 first chapters translated from the Italian by Donald Boris Hope Adriano Petta “Pure heresy” – synopsis & the 3 first chapters Outline………………….page 3 Chapter I ……………….page 11 Chapter II .………….… page 28 Chapter III …………….page 44 * * * Stampa Alternativa – Nuovi Equilibri Strada Tuscanese km 4.800 01100 Viterbo (VT) Italy Editorial director: Marcello Baraghini Commercial director: Angelo Leone [email protected] [email protected] tel. +39 0761.352277 – 0761.353485 fax +39 0761.352751 * * * Adriano Petta is a medievalist, collaborating with the expert in Catharist studies in Italy, Professor Giovanni Gonnet; and a student of the history of science. He has published two more historical novels, Roghi fatui (Stampa Alternativa, 2001) and Hypatia, scientist of Alexandria (english edition with preface by Margherita Hack by Lampi di stampa, September 2005) which, together with Pure heresy, form the trilogy developed from his studies on the conflict between Reason and Religion. He published also La cattedrale dei pagliacci (Robin, Rome, 2000, under the pseudonym James Adler), La Guerra dei fiori (Edis, Brescia, 1993), La libertà di Marusja (Gitti Europa, Milano, 1992). ([email protected] ) * * * Back Cover of Pure Heresy The heresy of the Cathars, the “Pure”, was the bane of the papacy at the dawn of the second millennium. Determined to became the greatest power in the western world, the catholic church decided with cold resolution to prevent the spread of learning – whether religious, philosophical or scientific – and to exterminate whoever might oppose its great project. In this historical novel, against the background of the tragedy of the Cathars and the genocide of Occitania at the turn of the XIIth and XIIIth centuries, there unfolds the struggle of one man for freedom of thought. The tragic story of Jordanus Nemorarius (the predecessor of Leonardo da Vinci), whose real identity was deliberately concealed even in some of the “official” history of science, is here reconstructed, by following its half-hidden traces in order to resolve their enigma. The gigantic fire in which, on 16th march 1244, the last martyrs of catharism were burned alive, did not succeed in burning all the “keys of knowledge”: and now it is at last possible to retrace a path that leads back to the very roots of western culture. 2 Adriano Petta “Pure heresy” – synopsis & the 3 first chapters PURE HERESY historical novel by Adriano Petta, originally published in Italy in December 2005 under the title “Eresia pura” by STAMPA ALTERNATIVA – NUOVI EQUILIBRI; Viterbo/Italy. (ISN 88- 7226-904-0) OUTLINE It is the hot night of July 24th 1207. We are at Nemi, in one of the outbuildings around the castle (the summer residence of the Cistercian monks of the monastery of Sant’Anastasio alle Tre Fontane in Rome). Exhausted by the sultry heat and by fatigue, two lay brothers – whose job is to cultivate the land and to look after the castle the whole year round – are talking late into the night. Old Jerome hates and curses priests, monks, abbots, bishops and popes. Young Giordano is instead entirely absorbed in the study of mechanics and mathematics. Both of them – during the winter – have the free run of the great library on the ground floor of the castle; but the most rare books are probably hidden in a great cupboard, kept always locked, on the second floor of the Saracen Tower. It’s from one of the books out of this cupboard that Jerome copied many pages in Greek, that he then passed on to young Giordano, who – thanks to his natural gift for figures – worked out what they meant and thus wrote his first book, My Little Abacus, in which he explained the surprising and then still unknown use of the new indo-arabic numerical notation. The book was then sold to a young Pisan merchant (a friend of Raniero Capocci, the abbot of Sant’Anastasio and of Nemi), Leonardo di Bonaccio, who in turn developed it, producing the first great treatise on the new Indian numbers, the Liber abaci, which was to mark a turning-point in the history of science. But how had the Greek pages come to end up in that book? And what was the text in question? And why had Giordano already several times, for no apparent reason, betaken himself into the basilica of S. Pietro in Vincoli in Rome, fascinated by the mosaic of St. Sebastian? And what were the General of the Cistercian Order, Arnauld-Amaury, and Pope Innocent III coming to do at Nemi the next day? During the night Giordano relives, in a dream, a terrifying story that happened on the 22nd of July more than five centuries before. 3 Adriano Petta “Pure heresy” – synopsis & the 3 first chapters The great Armenian astronomer and mathematician Ananias of Shirak – persecuted by the church and the law for his revolutionary ideas – has entrusted to three of his pupils (David, Eznik and Aser) the Keys of Knowledge, so that they shall take them to the West. It is the year 662: the Arabs are making themselves the masters of everything, and burning every book that they find in their path. The Keys of knowledge are revolutionary scientific discoveries that can change the course of history and of mankind, the fruit of work by the Indians and Chinese. But so far the Orientals have not succeeded in impressing a decisive turn on that history. It is the turn of the West. Ananias’ three pupils take different roads. Aser leaves his ‘Paulician’ Christian community of Kibossa and arrives in Rome together with the Byzantine emperor Constans II: inside a leather bag from which he never lets himself be parted, he keeps two manuscripts of no apparent value. The letters of an almost unknown Byzantine writer, Theophilact Simocattas, and a palimpsest with some plays by Plautus rubbed down to make room for the Old Testament. Interleaved in these two manuscripts are many pages in Greek with the Keys of knowledge. After having had the mosaic icon of St Sebastian installed in the basilica of San Pietro in Vincoli, Aser goes with a learned Roman prelate to the lake of Nemi – to just where once the temple of Diana used to be – to observe a strange phenomenon in the ground. But he is knocked down, tied up and burnt alive by his companion, who robs him of the two manuscripts hidden in the leather bag fastened whit a bronze buckle inlaid with designs in gold. Giordano wakes up, and – wracked with anguish – tells his companion the nightmare that he has just lived through. Old Jerome is at first incredulous, but then understands that something strange is really happening. The book from which he had copied the pages in Greek with the revolutionary Indian numbers was in actual fact a text of some comedies of Plautus… although he was sure that it was not a palimpsest. Then Giordano’s exact description of the bronze buckle makes him jolt with astonishment. He fetches a bag and shows it to the younger man: he found it the day before, while working in the fields near the lake, just where there had once stood the temple of the goddess Diana. Delirium, nightmare, legend, reality… by now the two men do not need to probe any more deeply. They realise that all this is not just fortuitous. Something serious is threatening the world… and it certainly has something to do with the meeting at Nemi between the Pope and the General of the Order and papal legate in Provence, Arnauld-Amaury. 4 Adriano Petta “Pure heresy” – synopsis & the 3 first chapters Giordano hides himself in the Saracen tower, in a niche on the second floor, behind some shelves loaded with books. It is just here – where there is the small and mysterious book-case – that the meeting takes place. They talk about the false Donations of Costantine. Finally, Innocent III decrees the extermination of the heretic Cathars and of the people of Occitania. Then he takes out of locked cupboard three precious manuscripts, containing “the essence of secular and revolutionary science, the knowledge that could endanger the future of the realm of the Church”, and consigns them to the legate Arnauld-Amaury, so that he shall take them with him to France and have them safely kept by Friar Elia. These extraordinary books – the letters of Theophilact Simocattas and two books of comedies by Plautus – are no longer safe in the Saracen tower of Nemi, because part of their contents have already been divulged. He summons his counsellor-confessor Abbot Raniero Capocci and shows him My little Abacus, by Jordanus de Nemore… which had been sold to the abbot’s own Pisan friend Leonardo seven years before, by a young man “of agile physique, short in stature and with thick black curly hair…” Giordano is discovered, but manages to run away, and – by means of the drain that leads from the lake of Nemi into the valley of Aricia – he takes ship and lands at Marseille; from there he sets out for the first city mentioned by Arnauld-Amaury: Béziers, the Devil’s lair, the Synagogue of Satan. From that moment on there is a change in the life of the young scholar Giordano Nemorario (who henceforth will call himself Palis Jordanus): his continual devotion to study is overlaid with other preoccupations. He goes on trying to trace the three precious manuscripts; but what the Church, with the interested help of allies like the kings of France, is preparing to bring about – that is, the extermination of an entire, free and rebellious people – comes to involve him more and more.

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