The century marking the transition from the Middle Ages to the modern era opens with a feudal legacy stemming from the internal divisions of France and England, still embroiled in the Hundred Years' War.Between mutual betrayals and the mystical figure of Joan of Arc, this historical transition marks the arrival of gunpowder in Europe, marking one of the world's epochal changes.Along with it, the invention of movable type printing and the fall of the Eastern Empire pave the wa...

The relationship between the Papacy and power that marked the period of the Avignon Papacy and the conditions that would spark the Hundred Years' War form the backdrop to the events of a French family of Norman origin torn between the concreteness of money and the revolutionary ideas of William of Ockham.These divergent paths were the seeds of future great rivalries between France and England, which began to emerge in the fourteenth century.The middle of the century was domin...

The first half of the thirteenth century is characterized by the sudden rise of the greatest empire ever.The Mongols of Genghis Khan overwhelm entire civilizations, but their military supremacy will give rise to an ephemeral world, one that a family of horse breeders will understand well, suspended between tradition and the necessary integration with superior cultures defeated in battle.In Europe, the central part of the century is dominated by the intellectual figure of Thom...

With the rise of Constantine to the helm of the Roman Empire, religion became a crucial element, along with civil wars and barbarian invasions, shaping the entire history of the fourth century. This was characterized by a continuous transformation of society, much more concerned with cultural, philosophical, and theological aspects than with military tradition.The Italics were no exception, and generations adapted to these new customs, a clear sign of a decline that was both inevita...

The vain attempt to reconcile knowledge, expressed in philosophical, theological, artistic, and scientific forms, with the harshness of history characterizes the history of the twelfth century.On the one hand, there are magnificent examples, such as the Norman cultural renaissance of Sicily under Roger II, up to the great intellectual peaks of Anselm of Aosta, Peter Abelard, and Averroes. On the other, there are the eternal imperial struggles against the Papacy or the emerging commu...

The new course of history after the final fall of the Western Roman Empire is revisited through the stories of three sets of twins, set in different places and contexts.Alongside a fleeting desire for restoration emanating from the East, which saw the great splendor of the Justinian era, but also the definitive collapse due to the plague and the endless wars that tore apart what remained of the Empire, the new era was characterized by the consolidation of Frankish power and the inva...

The fragmentation of the Holy Roman Empire due to internal struggles among Charlemagne's heirs and the arrival of Norman history marked the unfolding of events in the ninth century, through a relentless succession of hopes and immediate disillusionments regarding a past that was not destined to repeat itself.At the same time, the individual families belonging to these peoples tended to follow events, following the decisions of others. The Empire crumbled, and with it, the history of...

Three distinct portraits of tenth-century life unfold chronologically, from the Heian era in Japan, marked by the rise of the Fujiwara clan, to the rebirth of the Holy Roman Empire under Otto I of Saxony, and finally to the Viking spirit of adventure that reached the farthest reaches of northern Iceland and Greenland.Amid these events, several families of middle and lower social standing operate, each with their own desire for greatness and expansion, leveraging the qualities and ta...

No matter how much one hides or isolates oneself from the rest of society, the impetus of events carries within it a power that can drag each individual along the inevitable course of history.They will experience this clearly in a village with outdated ideas located in the far south of Burgundy during the reign of the Franks in the seventh century, and likewise, the segment of the Lombard people attempting to distance themselves from the ancestral division between Arianism and Catho...

As the eleventh century unfolded, the clash of civilizations became increasingly evident.Starting from the great cultural and enlightened era associated with the studies of Ibn Sina, under the Shiite Islamic dynasty of the Buwayhids, destined to succumb to the blows of the Seljuks, the story moves to Normandy, following the vicissitudes of the battles in France and then in England during the reign of William the Conqueror.The century ended with a blaze of violence, unleashed ...

Servio Italico's choice to break with his family's traditions will give rise to a lineage that, for five generations, will walk alongside the history of the first century.From the defeat of Teutoburg to the conquest of Britain, from the death of Octavian Augustus to the fire of Rome, from the eruption of Vesuvius to the first campaign of Dacia, men and women will find themselves in the presence of the founding idea of the Roman Empire, shaken by novelties and evolutions in an attemp...

The travails of the third century, characterized by a profound social crisis in the Roman Empire, shaken by civil wars and constant invasions, inevitably affected the Italian family, beginning with the descendants of Numa, the imperial legate who won countless battles and would be the last witness of the Severan dynasty.In the darkest period of Rome's thousand-year history, amid usurpers and the end of patrician rule, there were key figures capable of averting collapse and restoring...