The Shadow Of The Bell Tower. Stefano Vignaroli

the way between the thick brushwood and the tall poplar trees reflecting in the waters of the river.

      They are strange people, with a strange name, “pelasgi” they are called, their faces are tanned, marked by the tiredness of a long and adventurous journey. They have worn-out clothes; someone wear skins of animals that smell wild. The faces of men are framed by thick hair and thick beards that endless days of sunshine have made them dry, wicked.

      They are the survivors of a flotilla of small and fast boats that won the battle against the storms of the Adriatic sea. They landed a few days ago towards the mouth of that river that now crumbles into a thousand glistening rays of the sun. Emigrated from their land, which was the homeland of their elders, heroes sung by a blind poet for the villages of distant Greece, they are looking for a new land, a new homeland.

      And here they are, after an exhausting march, at the foot of a hill that grew as if by magic in the heart of the valley that had welcomed them down, at the mouth of the river. All around, woods as far as the eye can see, climbed on the surrounding hills. And the silence of a nature asleep for millennia. Always.

      A man, with a venerable and regal appearance, with the sign of command, points out that promontory that almost looks like a small island emerged at a beautiful position, in the middle of the valley, to collect some castaways. And he walks in that direction. The others follow him, keeping his pace, without speaking. On the highest part of the hill, the old king pushes his gaze away, discovering a marvellous landscape, drawn by the hundred shades of an immense green, barely cut by the sinuous trace of the river that sinks down, towards the sea.

      The old king, then turned to his own, nods in agreement and everyone lays their poor things on the ground. So they finally found the promised land, they reached the goal of their long wanderings through seas and lands.

      This, from now on, will be their new home.

      And so it was that King Esius founded the city of Jesi.

      And so the first Jesi’s inhabitants were Greeks, fleeing the destroyed city of Troy. Like Aeneas, who had gone up the coasts of the Tyrrhenian Sea to settle in Latium, King Esius had found the easiest way up the Adriatic Sea and reached the mouth of the Esino river.

      Lucia had become enthusiastic about this history, and dreams and visions were now relegated to a remote corner of her mind. Her brain and imagination were already in gear.

      This data and news could be used for a good publication or, why not, for the writing of a historical novel set in these areas, Lucia began to think, also meditating on possible gains.