Ego, Stupor Mundi
The short novel of the last night of Frederick II of Hohenstaufen, the “Puer Apuliae” who changed history forever

Castel Fiorentino (agro di Torremaggiore), 12 December 1250: Frederick II of Hohenstaufen, Emperor of the Romans, King of Sicily and of Jerusalem, lies dying in his domus federiciana. Beside him are Manfred, his favourite son, Berardo, the faithful retainer telling the beads of his rosary, and an Arab physician who can do no more. Lest he die in silence, Frederick II dictates his remembrance. Not the official version of the chroniclers, but his own. From Jesi to Palermo, from conquered Jerusalem to Lyons where Innocent IV deposed him, from the wooden city called Vittoria which he saw burn on a February night to his son Enzo's prison in Bologna and Pier delle Vigne's betrayal at Cremona. It is not the story of a miracle but the confession (of Pirandellian and Yourcenarian inspiration) of a man who sought to transform the world into an architecture of laws, falcons and tolerance, yet who watched that entire architecture collapse. An accurate, intimate and disenchanted historical and biographical novel, written as though it were the last De arte venandi: a work in Narrating I on how Frederick II held power in his grasp but, in the end, let it slip from his hand.