Synopsis

“The story of the rediscovery of Vivaldi's manuscripts really happened like this. Unlike the sentence that novelists usually place at the end of their works, I must instead assure you that the events narrated actually happened, and only in a few cases have I had to invent. The concatenation of events, however bizarre it may seem, is due to history.” If we know Vivaldi as well as we do today, beyond the “Four Seasons,” it is due to the forgotten vicissitudes—absurd, incredible, comical, at times suspenseful, as intricate as a dramatic and farcical play—that this historical novel reveals. The Red Priest, out of fashion after a life of success, died in poverty and deep in debt. The manuscripts with his unpublished music, collected in hundreds of autograph scores, passed from hand to hand between bibliophiles and in legacies, disappearing for almost two centuries. They resurfaced, following arduous and obscure paths, thanks to the combined greed of a Salesian bishop and the intelligent intuition of two passionate scholars, Gentili and Torri, the former a musicologist at the University of Turin, the latter director of the city's National Library. But from this moment on, the Venetian musician's autographs endured further misfortunes. This time, they were due to the indifference of the state, the hateful anti-Semitic idiocy of the fascist regime, and the opportunism and ingratitude of Italy's new masters.