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Author: Elio Manili
Publisher: Bonfirraro
A historical novel centered on Ercole Michele Branciforte (1750-1814), Prince of Butera, the last scion of the most important house in the Kingdom of Sicily, the Branciforte family. Their coat of arms—a lion with one-legged limbs—has its origins in the myth of Obizzo, Charlemagne's standard-bearer, who, surrounded by enemies seeking to seize the oriflamme, chose to have both his arms chopped off, yet still managed to hold the glorious banner. Generous toward the poor, haughty toward the powerful, often belonging to his own social class, Ercole Branciforte was loved by the people who venerated him as a true king, and feared by the powerful and even by the viceroys. He was a true prince, capable of great deeds. He would experience the honors and pomp of court, but also the shame of imprisonment. The public demonstration of the hot air balloon would be the most famous episode of his life. We find ourselves in a "very happy" Palermo, Italy's second city and one of the richest in Europe, where the story of the last prince of Sicily unfolds over a period spanning the mid-18th century to the first decade of the 19th century.
It is a period of profound historical turmoil that began in 1773 with the outbreak of riots and the subsequent dismissal of Viceroy Fogliani; the arrival of the Enlightenment viceroy Domenico Caracciolo, determined to demolish the solid feudal and aristocratic stronghold of Sicily; the poisoning of the Prince of Caramanico, sparked by court intrigues in the struggle for power; the beheading of the lawyer Francesco Paolo Di Blasi, a champion of a new political and social order; the outbreak of the French Revolution and the subsequent landing in Palermo of King Ferdinand and Queen Maria Carolina of Austria, culminating in the dissolution of the centuries-old Sicilian Parliament and the abolition of feudalism in Sicily in 1812.
ISBN: 978-88-6272-242-1
