1551: Muslim pirate ships infest the Mediterranean. In the meantime, Italy is disputed by the king of France and the emperor Charles V, with the French sovereign feeding the discontent of the Neapolitan nobility, intolerant of the pro-Spanish and pro-imperial policy of the viceroy of Naples Don Pedro Alvarez de Toledo. In the midst of these political turmoil moves Héctor of Extremadura, a former conquistador, now a mercenary in the service of Prince Ferrante Sanseverino. During a patrol mission at sea off the coast of Naples, the cannons of his Kite send a French brig down and save himself he is the only commander. The man has with him an encrypted letter and some documents that Héctor gives to his commander Marcantonio Villano. A series of murders and the disappearance of the encrypted letter will shake the astute Isabella Villamarina, wife of Prince Ferrante and a devoted subject of Emperor Charles V. Her husband's alliance plans with the King of France are as ambitious as they are dangerous: accusation of treason would be the undoing. He then entrusts Héctor with the task of solving the case and recovering the encrypted letter. For the former conquistador it will be a complex investigation that will intertwine with another mystery: the discovery of the skeleton of a little girl, found in the garden of Costanza Calenda, a fascinating and expert herbalist. Where does that little body come from? The investigations will lead Hector to deal with shady individuals, to dig into a story whose reasons go back to the events of the Jews expelled from Spain, to meddle in Donna Isabella's intrigues and in court affairs. Will he be able to solve the riddles he stumbled upon without risking his life and the newly blossomed love for Costanza?
It is a question that runs through the whole intriguing novel "The flower of Minerva" (2022, pp. 432) published by the small but very active Salerno-based publishing house Marlin which in these days is celebrating its first forty years of activity.
To the author of the book, Carmine Mari, we ask: how did the story told in the novel come about?
“It was the adventurous and tragic life of Ferrante Sanseverino, the last prince of Salerno, that put the flea in my head. When I read his biography, I was fascinated and I said to myself: why not write a novel about his adventures, talking about his sumptuous court of poets, actors and dangerous intellectuals? Ferrante Sanseverino was an incredible and controversial figure of the Neapolitan nobility of the sixteenth century, now trapped in the system of donations and privileges, emptied of all power by the politics of the viceroy of Naples, Don Pedro Alvarez De Toledo. In the end, I decided to keep our prince under wraps: too bulky and overbearing, he would have taken away the scene from all the other protagonists ".
What are your literary sources of inspiration when writing novels?
“Some great authors have kept me company: Philip Kerr, Jeffrey Archer, Arturo Pérez-Reverte, Winston Graham. I re-read Patrick O'Brian with pleasure for his adventures on the sea and a bit of Salgari never hurts. I can't do without Eric Ambler: it's my Linus blanket ”.
What fascinates you about the sixteenth century, the era in which the novel is set?
“The Europe we know today was born from those days. The sixteenth century is a century projected towards an epochal change. Nothing will be the same after the Lutheran reform. Christianity, built over the span of a millennium and extended to all of Europe, was destroyed in a few decades and in the space of a century nothing remained, if not the ambition to rebuild it. Paradoxically, the colonization of the West Indies has strengthened, if not invented, the idea of Europe, the geographical place of Christianity, to be opposed to the rest of the known world ”.
Why the figure of a woman who is a herbalist in a sixteenth-century novel? Isn't he an anachronistic figure?
“The Salerno medical school has always stood out for its secular approach, free from sexual prejudices. Suffice it to mention Trotula de Ruggero (11th century), considered the first magistra of Western history in the field of medicine. Even in the following centuries the presence of women is attested in the diplomas and licenses issued by the School. Costanza Calenda is a doctor who really lived in the 15th century. In the novel, Costanza is a woman who faces the world of men alone, like Isabella Villamarina, wife of Prince Ferrante and loyal subject of the emperor Charles V. Both fight their battle with courage; the first to assist girls destined for the practice of submission: ten years in the service of nobles in exchange for a marriage dowry but forced to endure abuses of all kinds. The second instead, grappling with the dangerous ambitions of her husband, intent on weaving his anti-Spanish plot ".
What man is Héctor? How would you define it?
“He is certainly a man who embodies his century, used to violence and to regulate matters with hasty methods. However, a breach has opened inside him, agitated by feelings of guilt for the atrocities committed against the Indian populations; faith or good works will not be enough to give him serenity. The only hope he has left is the love of a woman ”.