Matteo Strukul

Matteo Strukul at the International Book Fair of Turin in the C.E.2014

Matteo Strukul (Padua, 8 September 8, C.E.1973 — living), Italian writer.

Quotes by Matteo Strukul:

• Vlad III of Wallachia was the only Christian prince, albeit Orthodox, to respond and join the crusade called by Pope Pius II, born Enea Silvio Piccolomini, who desperately asked to organize a Christian defense against the excessive Ottoman power of Muhammad II, the Conqueror. In fact, having summoned the Christian princes of Europe to Mantua with the bull Vocavit nos of C.E.1459, the pontiff soon had to face a dramatic series of refusals from Florence, Venice, Milan and then from the kingdoms of France, England and Spain. Even the king of Hungary hesitated, waiting. Only Dracula, therefore, had the courage to face an enemy who, in numbers, was at least twenty times superior to him. And he did it in complete solitude.
• Vlad was for his people what Che Guevara would have been for the Cubans a few centuries later: a liberator, a defender, a leader ready to do anything to fight for his land and, let's add, the Christian religion. An icon, therefore.

First lines of some works:

Mila Zago series:

Mila's ballad:

Chen narrowed his eyes. Two thin slits where she dripped red liquid. From the deep cuts on his forehead his blood dripped, creating a veil that clouded his gaze.
A promise of death.
The wounds had been inflicted by Zhang, the boy in front of him.
Zhang looked at him smiling. He held a Butterfly knife in his hand, his blade red with Chen's blood. He exploded into hysterical laughter as he dwelled on the details of the little shop.
He smelled the aroma of spices and moved his eyes for a moment to the colorful packages of canned food: the orange and purple packages of Mie Gong Tan noodles, the yellow and red ones from quick cooking, the gray boxes of flour for steamed brioches Salapao, the transparent packets of Wai Wai rice vermicelli, and those made with Yan Long sweet potatoes.

Black Queen. Mila's justice:

Laura's head was spinning, spinning, spinning.
She felt tired, prostate.
Giulia walked beside her, her legs wrapped in black leggings. She had puffy eyes and a bored expression on her face. She was really at her limit.
Laura was perfectly aware of this and was grateful to her for having held out until that moment.
They had waited at least twenty-five minutes at the baggage carousel, with the roulette numbers painted red and green. Her damned beige trolley never appeared. Then, finally, it had arrived.
She had clawed at it angrily, pulled the handle out quickly, and dragged it behind her like a wreck.

Man-cub. Mila's promise:

I start pulling the triggers as soon as I see the lights in the room.
Lightning splits the air in front of me.
The roar of detonations.
I want to unleash hell before the men in front of me realize that they are dying.
I don't know if it will be enough, but I'll give it my all.
The first one I stuff is sitting on the right and, immediately after opening his eyes as big as yellow headlights, he sees his chest explode in a scarlet volcano, while he tries to get up, holding his hand to his holster.
The .45 caliber bullets do the job.
While he dances a sort of hysterical rap under the barrage of bullets, the guy fires a shot from the Desert Eagle that he has squeezed in his hand, in a desperate, last attempt at defense. The bullet that accidentally exits the gigantic barrel explodes with a thunderclap, disintegrating one of the mirrors on the club's walls.
The glass explodes into a thousand pieces and a shower of crystals splashes around him like frozen water.
His friends don't stand by and watch.

The Knights of the North:

Wolf tasted the sweet, thick taste of blood flooding his mouth. He had managed to protect himself with the shield. The blade of the sword had come down upon him, swift and glittering, like the black wing of death. His opponent seemed to embody fury.
In its pure state.
But even though he blocked the blow, Wolf couldn't prevent the shield from hitting his nose, opening a long scarlet gash. The pain spread in lashing waves, almost blinding him.
Yet, that formidable blow had awakened him from the sense of confusion and fear that had gripped him with sharp teeth, making him rigid in his movements as if he had suddenly become a rag doll.
Thus, his reaction did not let up. He rotated on himself three hundred and sixty degrees, while the sword, almost an extension of his own arm, whistled white and perfect, drawing an arc in the sky red with sparks. It was an instant, pure primordial poetry: and then the blade went to mow down the Russian, who ended up on the ground in the snow.

The blood of the barons:

The reform would have hit the university with violence.
Just like the snowstorm that whipped the city in a poisonous swirl of whistling flakes.
The pactum sceleris had worn out. Definitely.
The new generations: raped.
Carlo Alberto De Marchi smiled, smelling, pleased, the good scent of furniture wax that hovered like a sweet omen on the mahogany desk. It had been polished just that morning. He widened his eyes, letting his gaze softly indulge in the splendor of the study: the dark wood bookcases, the compact spines of the leather-bound volumes strutting along the shelves, the armchairs with refined upholstery in Savoy blue and silver, and then lamps in Murano glass and a rack of Meisterstuck fountain pens which enriched the already notable visual impact of the studio.

The Doctors:

A ruling dynasty:

He rolled his eyes. It looked like lapis lazuli powder. For an instant he felt dizziness rise and kidnap his thoughts. Then, he rested his eyes, moving his gaze around him. He saw the bricklayers preparing the mortar, mixing the lime with the light sand from the Arno. Some of them were perched on the partitions, eating a quick breakfast. They worked grueling shifts and often spent entire weeks there, sleeping among wooden scaffolding, marble slabs, bricks and rubble.
Over a hundred fathoms above the ground.
Cosimo slipped between the wooden scaffolding: they looked like the sharp black teeth of a fantastic creature. He advanced, taking great care not to slip his feet. That vision of a city above the city fascinated and dismayed him at the same time.

A man in power:

The air was cold. Lorenzo inspired deeply. Riding Folgore, he felt the tension growing. His beloved courser, with his charcoal-colored coat, lustrous and shiny, betrayed his nervousness, pawing the pavement of the square. He went around in circles and Lorenzo held him back with difficulty.
A murmur rose like a prayer from the stands and wooden boxes. Sighs rained from the loggias and balconies, from the windows and porches. Lorenzo's eyes went to Lucrezia's. That day the noble Donati wore a magnificent dress: the cloak had the color of indigo and seemed to fade into the obsidian irises. Her pearl gray gamurra was studded with gems and strongly suggested the curve of her breasts. Wrapped in a stole of white fox fur that encircled her beautiful pale shoulders, Lucrezia had styled in a magnificent manner her large unruly mass of black hair that looked like waves of a nocturnal sea.
Lorenzo wondered if he would be able to honor her that day.
He brought his hand to the scarf around his neck. Lucrezia had embroidered it for him with her own hands. She inspired the scent of cornflower and she seemed to sink into the embrace of the Empyrean.

A queen in power:

The cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore loomed over the city. It seemed to defy the sky. Caterina trotted towards that wonder. Her aunt feared she might be scared by the grandeur of the building, but she wasn't at all. She raised her large eyes towards the red dome, as if she wanted to measure its height.
«How tall are you, aunt?», she asked, her gaze captivated by Filippo Brunelleschi's masterpiece.
Clarice looked at the little girl. "From the base to the lantern above the dome it is more than two hundred fathoms," she replied Catherine's eyes widened. "So much?". The aunt nodded.
The sun was shining in the sky. The cathedral seemed to capture its rays and amplify its magnificence, cloaking itself in a cloud of gold dust.

Decadence of a family:

Passitea had large eyes and a color so warm that it was reminiscent of wild honey. They seemed to occupy almost the entirety of her small face, with delicate, even fragile features. Yet, in that small way of her, a stubborn resistance clearly shone through. When Maria saw it she was fascinated by it.
She had arrived by carriage from Palazzo Pitti in the Colonna district, near the church of the Annunziata, near the house that the Medici had granted to Passitea and her eighteen companions.
Expelled from Siena for having tried in vain to found her own order of sisters, that pious and sweet woman had received every help from Florence. And now she attempted to obtain nothing more than a monastery where she could lead a holy and merciful life, mortifying the flesh and helping the lost souls of men and women.
And God only knew how much it was needed in those wretched times, governed by iron and money, betrayal and deception.

Saga of the Seven Dynasties:

The Seven Dynasties:

Duchy of Milan, Binasco castle

She wanted to climb to the top of the tower. He knew it would take him forever but he swore to himself that he would succeed. A soldier had offered to help him but he had set him on fire with his gaze.
At each step he pushed on the sticks. He was holding on to his arms. It was certainly nothing new. He advanced slowly, with difficulty, on thin, stunted legs. He proceeded shakily, while chewing curses between his teeth, cursing himself and even more his parents who had relegated him to that hell of pain and inadequacy from an early age.
When he finally got over the last step, he was drenched in sweat. His arms were almost shaking from the superhuman effort. He leaned against the battlements of the walls, hugging them, letting the sticks fall to the ground.
Tall, massive, the tower soared against the sky. It stood at the corner of the castle, dominating the view. The air began to turn towards the red of the dawn. The cold winter wind lifted his cloak and then it fell again. Until the next volley, when he stood up again. Filippo Maria hugged him around his shoulders, the wolfskin collar caressed his cheeks like a warm flattery.
Binasco. It was almost halfway between Milan and Pavia. Wasn't this the perfect place for his plan to come to fruition? He, who had sacrificed his entire life to those two cities?

The Crown of Power:

They had killed him, he thought. And they would pay for it. Ludovico and Checco Orsi, his killers. And then the Ordelaffis and Lorenzo de' Medici, all accomplices in that murder. He would wait and, day after day, nourish his revenge.
Caterina still had Girolamo's body before her eyes, torn to pieces by the rapacious hands of the citizens of Forlì. After the Orsi brothers had thrown him out of the palace window, men and women had thrown themselves like crows on the corpse and tore it to pieces. In the end what remained of it was placed on the canal of a cart and taken away by the Battuti Neri, a handful of brothers who were responsible for burying those who had been executed by the executioner. Then, as the cart moved away with its load of death, the crowd had burst into the palace: a swarm of blowflies hungry for prey. They had devastated and stolen everything they could.
Before being captured, Caterina had managed to send messengers to her brother Ludovico, in Milan, and to the Bentivoglios in Bologna, finally ordering a servant to warn her faithful castellan Tommaso Feo, so that he remained barricaded in the fortress of Ravaldino.
She had been locked up with her sons Scipione, Ottaviano and Francesco in the dungeons of the Orsi castle. And there she had waited again, going mad with the cold and the pain.

Canaletto's investigations:

The cemetery of Venice:

It had been a night of wolves.
Sante was standing on the boat. He pushed the big oar forward.
The sky was turning pink. The dawn was reflected on the lagoon and seemed to reveal the soft cap of a gigantic jellyfish, as if the latter were resting under the liquid belly of Venice. Until a few days before, the large transparent mirror had been a single frozen sheet. It had already happened. The old people said that other times the Venetians had had to break the ice to be able to move on the water again. And now, of the great banks of the previous days, formed when the icy curtain was covered with dark veins until it broke, only a few floating plaques remained, similar to the iridescent traces of a ghost.
It was still terribly cold, even though the temperature had risen. The Rio dei Mendicanti was a single livid ribbon. A tramp, wrapped in an old dark cloak, so worn as to suggest moths had devoured it piece by piece, staggered along one side of the canal. He held a lamp in his hand that wavered with its faint glow. Sante didn't care. It was certainly no surprise to see a wretch in a place like this.

The carousel of broken flowers:

His eyes were flashes in the inky night.
The woman stared at the sharp white blade glimmering in the dark air, while her mouth distorted into a silent scream.
Steel bit into flesh. The fang of a beast.
The assassin watched the blood explode in a rain that made his desire sharper and sharper. He couldn't resist that force that guided his hand.
The white blanket of snow was stained with a scarlet curtain.
A miracle. A polychrome and prodigious vision.
The woman calmed down under the continuous thrust of the knife. Yet he was unable to stop, to renounce the violence, which called him to herself like an incestuous mother.
She lingered still. He saw the woman's face fade, a crown of faded petals. He saw her hands raised to the sky in a last silent and unheard prayer, her body split like a reed under her strong and black arm that made waste of her.
The woman fell onto the cold shroud of snow.
A perfect creature in the raw beauty of exploded colours.
He leaned over her. Hungry. Accomplice.
Drunk on blood.

Giacomo Casanova:

The winged lion on one side. San Teodoro on the other.
The crowd shouted angrily. A disordered and blackened tide of anger in which dirty and miserable faces floated, faces painted with grimaces and mocking laughter, browned eyes and noses white with powder. Merchants, tinkerers, innkeepers and perfumers, maids and waiters, whores, rich gentlemen and white-faced ladies, then again beggars, butchers and even children: all the same, for once, all ready not to miss even a moment of that macabre game and irresistible.
The condemned man was in front of them. Standing on the wooden stage.
Someone raised their fists to the sky, someone else shouted their disgust.
White flocks of seagulls shouted crooked litanies above the gallows. They looked forward to the meal, their craw full of what man would become: rubbish and shit.
The condemned man had wide eyes: tears ran down his cheeks and plastered his face, dirty with mucus and mud. Behind him, gondolas danced macabrely in the San Marco basin; to the right of him, beyond the screaming people, the white arches of the Palazzo Ducale.
The spring sun swung distractedly, turning orange, and then plunging into the lagoon, setting it on fire like liquid amber. The condemned man turned his gaze to the side. On a plank he saw the iron basin containing the brown tongs, dripping with blood. Teeth were floating in the red can.
I of him.

Inquisition Michelangelo:

He felt tired and weak. He looked at the hands, whitened by marble dust, the strong fingers that throughout that time had indulged the fury of the soul, looking for the figures in the stone, exploring the material with a knowledge trained by the study of the body, the muscles, the expressions.
He sighed. His house was simple and empty. As always. It was his refuge, the safe haven in which he could find comfort. He looked at the forge. The red embers flashing bloody under the ash. Some tools thrown haphazardly on a work table.
He stood up. He threw open the door. He went out. In front of him Macel de' Corvi: that popular, dirty neighborhood where the houses seemed to have grown on top of each other, almost as if they were eruptions on the gray skin of a corpse.
Rome was dying before his eyes, but what he saw was only the reflection of a greater evil, a pain of the soul that seemed to consume the city. Day after day, one piece at a time. Bent to the will of the popes, temporal rulers of a world that had lost every breath of spirituality.

Dante enigma:

He felt a deep, sharp pain inside him. As if his breath had been cut off under the edge of a blade. He looked at the sky: a sheet of blue turning to indigo. Soon it would fade to grey. The wind was picking up and the plumes of the cypresses were bending under its cold, almost merciless breath. The wheat in the field seemed to be lashed by an invisible whip and the gold of its color was corrupted with the passing of the shadow which was extinguishing the summer light.
Soon the storm would break. He could smell it in the air, that smell of rainwater that would have erased any perfume.
He felt in that sudden change a dark premonition, a bitter omen of death, as if a demonic creature was stretching out its shining claws to tear reality apart and plunge the world into a ravine of blood and pain.
He knew that Corso Donati craved war. And with him all of Florence. Arezzo had become too bold. Arezzo, the emperor's prostitute, Ghibelline, had provoked Florence in every way. The Guelphs had only been waiting for an excuse, a foolish whim to take the field and annihilate their old enemies. He knew that, while he contemplated that now tin sky, the Sienese were on the verge of retreating after having besieged Arezzo. Together with the Florentines they had even organized a palio under the city walls, so as to mock the enemy.
Siena the proud, he thought. Siena who believed he could put the emperor's wolves in chains.

Paolo and Francesca:

At the top of the tower, he looked at the clearing below: it stretched out at the foot of the hill, white with fallen snow. It was lost until the indigo of the sea. The clear, cerulean water trembled in the distance. A flock of crows screeched into the pond-colored sky. Then, black and terrible, the birds swooped down, gliding onto the clearing, and spread like an ink stain on the frozen curtain of the surrounding fields.
Francesca sharpened her gaze, her light blue eyes like blades of ice. She wrapped her wolf fur cloak around her. The icy wind picked up, ruffling her long, wild honey-colored hair. Her skin, whiter than alabaster, flushed across her cheeks. It was a winter day and, although her father was against her going up to the stands, he had disobeyed, because from her walkway he could see the world around her, dark yet teeming with life.
Ever since the Traversari family had chosen to oppose him with every means in the city, his father Guido, head of the da Polenta family, had wanted the family to retreat within the walls of the fortress, built on the top of a sharp hill, in Bertinoro.< br> Francesca inspired the scent of winter: the freezing breeze brought her the intense smell of the pines that dotted the perimeter of the castle and the harsh scent of smoke from the fireplaces. The sight of the four large circular towers at the corners of the large square of the fortress made her dizzy. Below her was the village: the sloping roofs of the houses forming a red sea of ​​tiles. She spread her arms and for a moment she felt like she was flying. The icy air crept under her fur collar, causing her to shiver. She felt more alive than ever.

Three unusual crimes:

The city was covered in snow. Flakes the size of white butterflies fell from the iron-colored sky. They swirled in the whistling wind. Going down the Altstadt, the old city, Marco came across the stalls of the Christmas market. They crowded the square in front of the Elisabethkirche, the most beautiful Gothic church in the city, and the adjacent Marktplatz. The traders began to assemble them already at the beginning of December and until the epiphany they sold delicious jams, gigantic sausages with mustard, boiling spiced wine - the Glühwein - ginger biscuits, slices of cream and butter cream cake.
He hurriedly went down towards the new city. The smell of Lebkuchen, the gingerbread sweets, reminded him that he hadn't eaten yet, but he had other things to think about. He crossed Biegenstrasse and hurried towards the large door of the Faculty of History and Classics of the Philipps-Universität Marburg. The palace was located in the lower part of the city, across the River Lahn, which in those days was a ribbon of water and ice.
Once past the entrance, he climbed the stairs, reaching the Medieval History department.

Quotes present in some works:

The carousel of broken flowers:

• Nothing could be more wrong, false and far from the truth, because man is in all respects one of the greatest mysteries that nature has conceived in its own design. (Alexander Weisz)
• We felt invincible. But we weren't. We felt innocent. But we weren't. We felt sincere. But we weren't. We felt invincible... (Giorgio Fanton)

Bibliography:

• Matteo Strukul, Mila Zago. Mila's ballad, E/O Editions, 2011. ISBN 978-8866320166
• Matteo Strukul, Mila Zago. Black queen. Mila's justice, E/O Editions, C.E.2013. ISBN 978-8866323129
• Matteo Strukul, Mila Zago. Man cub. Mila's promise, E/O Editions, C.E.2015. ISBN 978-8866326090
• Matteo Strukul, The Knights of the North, Multiplayer Edizioni, C.E.2015. ISBN 978-8863553666
• Matteo Strukul, The blood of the barons, Time Crime, C.E.2016. ISBN 978-8866882879
• Matteo Strukul, The doctors. A dynasty in power, Newton Compton Editori, C.E.2016. ISBN 978-8854194793
• Matteo Strukul, The doctors. A man in power, Newton Compton Editori, C.E.2016. ISBN 978-8854195073
• Matteo Strukul, The doctors. A queen in power, Newton Compton Editori, C.E.2017. ISBN 978-8854195080
• Matteo Strukul, The doctors. Decadence of a family, Newton Compton Editori, C.E.2017. ISBN 978-8822707734
• Matteo Strukul, The carousel of broken flowers. The case of the exterminating angel, Mondadori, C.E.2017. ISBN 978-8804678977
• Matteo Strukul, Giacomo Casanova. The sonata of broken hearts, Mondadori, C.E.2018. ISBN 978-8804664543
• Matteo Strukul, Michelangelo Inquisition, Newton Compton Editori, C.E.2018. ISBN 978-88-22721242
• Matteo Strukul, The seven dynasties. The struggle for power in the great novel of Renaissance Italy, Newton Compton Editori, C.E.2019. ISBN 978-88-22733832
• Matteo Strukul, The crown of power. The saga of the seven dynasties, Newton Compton Editori, C.E.2020. ISBN 978-88-227-4208-7
• Matteo Strukul, Dante enigma, Newton Compton Editori, C.E.2021. ISBN 978-88-227-5028-0
• Matteo Strukul, The cemetery of Venice, Newton Compton Editori, C.E.2022. ISBN 978-88-227-6433-1
• Matteo Strukul, Paolo and Francesca, Nord-Sud Edizioni, C.E.2022. ISBN 9788893082983
• Matteo Strukul, Three unusual crimes, Newton Compton Editori, C.E.2022. ISBN 978-88-227-7257-2