Join #HistoricalFiction author, Christopher J T Lewis, as he takes a look at Orlando Furioso — a sixteenth-century Game of Thrones #History @cjtlewis

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It is a sprawling saga of warring kings, brave knights, beautiful women, bad magicians, wicked witch queens, and the odd dwarf (who seems to share some of Tyrion’s interests). There is at least one feisty maiden warrior, Bradamante, who would give Brienne a run for her money. There are no dragons, but there is the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">hippogriff</i>, a useful flying horse.<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lfOyYf1RF7s..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lfOyYf1RF7..." width="450" /></a></div><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Orlando Furioso</span></i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;"> was hugely popular and influential in the sixteenth century. It was the favourite poem of astronomer and scientist Galileo Galilei (1564-1642); he knew large chunks of it off by heart. In my recent historical crime story <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Galileo’s Revenge</i> you will find how it helped him in the pursuit of some of his not-so-scientific goals.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-r62q_97R4j..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="431" data-original-width="307" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-r62q_97R4j..." width="450" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Galileos-Rev... Revenge.</a></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The song of Orlando<o:p></o:p></span></b><br /><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The main story of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Orlando Furioso</i> is set in the time of King Charlemagne the Great (742-812), when Christians and Saracens were at war for the possession of Europe. (So absolutely no modern resonance, then.) Poetic tales of knightly chivalry and courtly love set at that time were later written (or, at least, written down) in the 12^th century. The most famous was the ‘Song of Roland’.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">In Ariosto’s 16^th-century version, the Saracens, under Agramant, king of Africa, are besieging Charlemagne in Paris. Here Angelica, daughter of Galafron, king of Cathay, is in protective custody – for her own good, sort of: it’s a long story. Orlando (that is the ‘Roland’ of the earlier stories), is the chief of Charlemagne’s Paladins (knights errant), but he is captivated by Angelica’s beauty. When she escapes and flees, he abandons his military duties and sets off after her. His search, and what he finds, drives him mad, indeed, utterly berserk – but not until canto 23 (out of a total of 46).<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Angelica and Medoro<o:p></o:p></span></b><br /><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">But what is it that drives Orlando mad? For the first eighteen cantos, the irresistible Angelica eludes her numerous noble suitors, both the chivalrous and the rather less so. (King Sacrapant, for example, meeting Angelica in the depths of the countryside, decides to ravage her forthwith:<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">‘I’ll gather now the fresh and fragrant rose,<o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Whose beauty may with standing still be spent;<o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">One cannot do a thing, as I suppose,<o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">That better can a woman’s mind content.’<o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">But Angelica manages to escape his clutches intact.)<o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uJZtzB85Zs0..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uJZtzB85Zs..." width="450" /></a></div><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Eventually, by chance, she encounters a badly injured young Saracen soldier, named Medoro, someone <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not</i> of noble birth, but a mere ‘page of mean deserts’. Whilst tending to his wounds, ‘She having learned of surgery the art’, she promptly falls head over heels in love and<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">‘She suffers poor Medoro take the flower<o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Which many sought but none had yet obtained;<o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">That fragrant rose that to the present hour<o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Ungathered was, behold, Medoro gained.’<o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">For a month or more (as Medoro convalesces) they linger in the pleasant countryside. All the while they carve their names ‘with bodkin, knife or pin’ on ‘every stone or sturdy tree’. <o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">‘“Angelica” and “Medoro” in every place<o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">With sundry knots and wreaths they interlace.’<o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">But finally they head for Barcelona and take ship back to her home in Cathay.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Orlando goes berserk<o:p></o:p></span></b><br /><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">As luck would have it, some four cantos later, in his constant searching after Angelica, Orlando arrives at a pleasant shady grove. Of all the shady groves in all of Christendom!<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">‘For, looking all about the grove, behold,<o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">In sundry places fair ingrav’d he sees<o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Her name whose love he more esteems than gold,<o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">By her own hand in barks of divers trees:<o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">This was the place wherein before I told<o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Medoro used to pay his surgeon’s fees,<o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Where she, to boast of that that was her shame,<o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Used oft to write hers and Medoro’s name….’<o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">To remove all possibility of mistaken identity, Orlando finds a poem written by Medoro to celebrate his good fortune, and likewise the place<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">‘Where sweet Angelica, daughter and heir<o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Of Galafron, on whom in vain were fixed<o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Full many hearts, with me did oft repair<o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Alone, and naked lay mine arms betwixt.’<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Galafron, you will remember, was the King of Cathay. So, definitely not some other Angelica.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">And thus, finally convinced of Angelica’s ‘betrayal’, Orlando goes mad. For ‘three days he doth not sleep nor drink nor eat,/But lay with open eyes as in a swoon;/The fourth, with rage and not with reason waked,/He rents his clothes and runs about stark naked.’ Stark, staring mad, then. He proceeds to run amok in the surrounding countryside, uprooting trees and assaulting herdsmen and, indeed, their flocks.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">A flight to the Moon<o:p></o:p></span></b><br /><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">But Orlando’s martial prowess is absolutely crucial to the defence of Christendom against the Saracen. The urgent question is, therefore, (Canto 34) ‘How to his wits Orlando may be brought?’ His friend, the English knight Duke Astolfo, undertakes to fly to the Moon, which is where all ‘things that on Earth were lost’ may be found. The journey is accomplished with the help of the hippogriff and Elijah’s chariot of fire. <o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7piwxlJlyBs..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7piwxlJlyB..." width="450" /></a></div><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Arrived upon the Moon, Astolfo finds a storehouse containing ‘a mighty mass of things strangely confused,/Things that on Earth were lost or were abused’. Along with the expected Biros and odd socks, he finds men’s lost wits, ‘kept in pots’ or jars, ‘amongst which one had writ/Upon the side thereof “Orlando’s wit”.’ And so, carrying this jar, and pausing only to grab his own lost wits – whose loss he hadn’t noticed – Astolfo descends to Earth again.<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Eventually (canto 39), he catches up with the still raving Orlando. Unstoppering the jar, Astolfo holds it close ‘to [Orlando’s] nostrils; and eftsoon/He drawing breath, this miracle was wrought:/The jar was void and emptied every whit,/And he restored unto his perfect wit.’ Interestingly, ‘Thus being to his former wits restored,/He was likewise delivered clean from love.’ Orlando was so over Angelica, and could return to the business of saving Christendom.<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 150%;">Sources<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 150%;">I have used the rather free translation of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Orlando Furioso</i> ‘into English heroical verse’ by the delightful Elizabethan courtier Sir John Harington (1560-1612). There is a handy book of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Selections</i> (Indiana University Press, ca.1963) from this translation edited by Rudolf Gottfried.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><br /></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 28.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Galileo’s Revenge<o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 28.0pt; line-height: 115%;">By Christopher J T Lewis<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 28.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nr2MpmkvaO..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="431" data-original-width="307" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nr2MpmkvaO..." width="450" /></a></div><br /><b><br /></b></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><b>Florence, October 1587.</b></span><br /><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Francesco de’ Medici, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, collapses whilst out hunting with his ambitious younger brother, the Cardinal Ferdinand. Soon the Grand Duke is dead. Officially the Cardinal insists that his brother has died of a malarial fever. But secretly an investigation begins to find the killer – or a suitable scapegoat?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Galileo, a brilliant, impecunious, and unscrupulous young scientist, is struggling to make a name for himself at the corrupt court of the Medici. He is horrified to be arrested as the Duke’s murderer: nothing burns so well as a wicked magician! His only hope is to find the real killer – or, at least, a better scapegoat. His search takes him through the piazzas and palaces of Florence, through the barber-shops and brothels, the cloisters and the taverns. Especially the taverns.<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 28.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="color: #666666;">Excerpt</span><o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 28.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 4.25pt; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Suddenly the Duke pushed his chair back from the table and lurched to his feet. His face had drained of colour. The sun was not hot this late in the year, but here, outside in the woods, the cool, bright light caught beads of sweat upon His Highness’ forehead. As the Duke straightened up unsteadily, Cardinal Ferdinand put out a solicitous hand to offer support. Irritably the Duke brushed the proffered arm aside, and the loose sleeve of the Cardinal’s jacket knocked over the Duke’s beaker of wine. A red stain spread rapidly over the white linen table-cloth.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 4.25pt; margin-top: 0cm;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 4.25pt; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Galileo watched the Duke walk away towards the nearest clump of trees… A minute or so later the Duke re-emerged from the bushes adjusting his dress and strode more briskly back to the Family table. He grabbed his beaker, which had been promptly righted and refilled, and poured the contents down his throat in one long gurgling draught. He turned abruptly and embraced his surprised brother the Cardinal, who had again risen from his seat upon the Duke’s return. For a moment they swayed together like tired wrestlers, before the Duke released his hold and, turning to the other side, stooped to gently kiss his Duchess Bianca upon the mouth. Straightening up again, he seemed to be struck by some sudden thought or remembered duty. His hand reached out towards the table but faltered in mid-air, and he crumpled in a heap upon the ground.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 4.25pt; margin-top: 0cm; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 4.25pt; margin-top: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The scene put Galileo much in mind of one of those old-fashioned frescoes of ‘The Last Supper’ – especially if you allowed yourself to imagine that Our Lord, after one-too-many toasts of blood-heavy red wine, had slid off his chair and disappeared under the table. All the guests at the Duke’s high table were frozen in strange poses of surprise and dismay, the Cardinal still half out of his seat, staring open-mouthed at Francesco’s empty place. The similarity to ‘The Last Supper’ was more than merely pictorial: the Duke might well have just announced that ‘One of you that eateth with me has betrayed me.’<o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 28.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 28.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Pick up you copy of<o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: center;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 28.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Galileo’s Revenge<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 28.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Galileos-Rev... UK</a> • <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Galileos-Reven... US</a><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 28.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 28.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 28.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Christopher J T Lewis<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I am a historian and writer, living in Cambridge, UK. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Galileo’s Revenge</i> is my first work of fiction.<o:p></o:p></span><br /><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I have studied at Cambridge, London and Padua universities. Although theoretical physics was my first love, I subsequently became fascinated by the history of science. I am especially fond of the medieval and early modern periods: everything, that is, from the Venerable Bede (c.673-735) to the Honourable Boyle (1627-91), and a bit beyond. <o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A few years ago, I started work on a new, up-to-date biography of Galileo. Unfortunately (for me) a couple of other excellent scholars had already had the same idea, and I shelved my own project. But all was not lost. I have always loved crime fiction and historical fiction and above all historical crime fiction. (Yes, yes, I admit it: I adore Cadfael, even if he is the veritable white line down the middle of the road.) And so I had already started working on an early draft of my novel <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Galileo’s Revenge</i>.<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">My story, fills in some of the large gaps in our knowledge about his early life, and entangles the young, ambitious Galileo with the real (and highly suspicious) deaths of the Medici Duke and Duchess of Tuscany in 1587. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">How hard can writing fiction be? </i>I asked myself.<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> You just make it up as you go along. And I won’t have to check my references</i>. A much older and slightly wiser man, I finally stopped writing and published <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Galileo’s Revenge, or: A Cure for the Itch</i> in November 2018.<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I taught for the Open University for some fifteen years; for another twenty years I was a supervisor and Affiliated Research Scholar at the Department of History and Philosophy of Science in Cambridge. My previous work includes <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Heat and Thermodynamics. A historical perspective</i> (Greenwood, 2007), a largely biographical and social treatment aimed at non-specialist students and the general reader. This received an award from the US journal<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> Choice</i> as one of their ‘Best Academic Books of the Year 2008’. <o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">But I have put all that behind me now, and I am trying to go straight. I live quietly just off the Mill Road in Cambridge, in newly fashionable Romsey Town. This is most convenient for splendid café/vinyl store ‘Relevant Records’, for wonderful cocktails at ‘196’, and for tasty Italian delicatessen at ‘Limoncello’. It was at each of these excellent emporia, of course, that I had the original inspiration for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Galileo’s Revenge</i>. Oh alright, that’s not true, it was whilst walking along the promenade at Southwold, but they have all helped to keep me going along the way.<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Connect with Christopher: <a href="http://www.galileosrevenge.co.uk/&quo... • <a href="https://twitter.com/cjtlewis">... class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><br /></div>