Giovanna Strano, “Lo specchio delle stelle”
Giovanna Strano returns to the historical novel with The mirror of the stars. This is not about the autobiography of a famous artist, such as Van Gogh or Modigliani, or the model of Botticelli, but about a particular period, not very well known, and alchemical, esoteric and religious references.
The place is Sicily — the novel has the patronage of the Region — the characters are the kings of Trinacria, Frederick III of Swabia and Eleonora d’Angiò, in addition to the Templar Roger of Flor and the alchemist doctor Arnaldo da Villanova.
Among castles, dungeons, Cathar heresies, we come to the discovery and deciphering of an ancient mysterious artifact, a sort of holy Grail — but perhaps it is precisely the Grail itself — a papyrus written by Jesus himself, where the mystery of the universe is revealed. Opposites are opposed as in Catharism, light and dark, good and evil, God and Satan, but only one — we will discover — is the One who wanted and imagined everything, the one in whom the coniunctio oppositorum will be realized.
The court of Frederick III (as that of the more famous Frederick II had been) is an open and tolerant place, where even the Cathar heresy is welcomed and not denied, where the flame of knowledge and culture is always lit. Frederick is a man of honor and great intellectual curiosity, his wife Eleonora an enlightened woman, advocate of progress and female emancipation. Having married her for dynastic duty, Federico falls in love with her and has nine children with her, and this undermines the previous relationship with Sibilla Sormella.
Federico believes in friendship and loyalty but loses his two friends, Ruggero, Templar commander of the Almogavari, megadux of the Byzantine emperor, and Arnaldo, due to betrayals.
Arnaldo da Villanova, whose tomb was discovered in 1969 in the castle of Montalbano Elicona, — a melting pot of different religions and which even hosts two Cathar churches — is a singular figure of a doctor, a cross between a magician and a scientist, investigator of the mysteries of nature and alchemy, close to Franciscan spiritualism. It is made to coincide with the secret of Argimusco, a Sicilian plateau where stones eroded by the wind rise — almost natural megaliths, used as an astronomical observatory since ancient times.
Character in its own right and omnipresent, the beautiful land of Sicily, the warm and sensual breath of the sirocco, the glare of the sea, the incandescence of the sun and the scents of Mediterranean plants and medicinal herbs.
Beyond the esoteric philosophical intent or historical reconstruction, the psychology of the characters is well designed and the feeling of love is well examined, the one that is born “despite”, between Maria and Ruggero, and especially between Eleonora and Frederick. Unforeseen loves, not predestined, unwanted but that are released and grow up to overwhelm the present and rewrite the past. Maria will see Ruggero die, Frederick will abandon the mother of his five children for a woman who was given to him as a wife only for convenience. Strano is a historian, but love fascinates her, a transcendent, overbearing, almost religious and philosophical feeling.