Il libro di Renzo. Engaged. Vol. 1

A bold and original reinterpretation of Manzoni’s classic 150 years after the death of Alessandro Manzoni, Beppe Roncari presents a chilling horror and fantasy reimagining of one of Italy’s most beloved novels, The Betrothed, a work admired by literary giant Goethe, recently translated in modern english by renowned italianist Michael Moore.

Engaged for centuries in a relentless battle between Good and Evil, the angel Mumiah and the demon Belial witness the burning of Giordano Bruno, hoping to seize the famous Secret Book written by the Nolan philosopher, guardian of a power that transcends death.

When the volume disappears, they begin a frantic search that leads them to Lecco and intertwines with the lives of two young people: Renzo and Lucia. Betrothed and about to fulfill their dream of love, they become pawns in the chess game between the angel, who tries in every way to help them, and the demon, who uses Don Rodrigo and his thugs to separate them. But there are even greater forces at work: Famine, War, Pestilence, Death… and Providence, a mysterious force, that intertwines destinies, even after death, and is about to bring about the birth of a new era. After the failed marriage, Renzo and Lucia’s paths diverge: he, after escaping arrest in Milan, finds refuge in Bergamo only to be captured by the Inquisition and taken to Venice as a prisoner; she, on the other hand, in the Monza convent, meets Gertrude, a woman of dark charm and full of secrets.

The book, which began in the 1600s with the burning at the stake of Giordano Bruno, ends in 1633 with the trial and abjuration of Galileo Galilei. A time in History when the future of mankind changed forever.