A ring, a stick and a seal are the three symbols of the Messiah of Amiata, David Lazzaretti, founder of Jurisdavidism and utopian socialist whose death is still shrouded in mystery.

The lawyer Anna Donati does not imagine it, but her destiny is about to intertwine with that of the new Messiah: she is engaged as a defender in the investigation into the murder of the last jurisdavidic priest.

Adventures at the limits of the incredible and many enigmas to solve will lead the protagonist among the suggestive landscapes of the Amiata, the Enchanted Mountain. Here, through the discovery of new details about the life and death of Lazzaretti, he will learn to know himself better. Past and present, reality and fantasy intertwine in this magical, spiritual and esoteric place where time seems to have stopped.

DAVIDE LAZZARETTI
Who was this preacher, this heretic, whose name evokes rites, mysteries, esotericism and liturgies which, liturgies and tinges the summit of Mount Labbro with a spirituality that is suspended and dense with secrecy and supernatural?
Davide Lazzaretti, the carter who became the “prophet of Amiata” marks the middle years of the nineteenth century with visions and preaching linked to a mission: to recover the ancient spirit of Christianity. In practice a return to the origins inspired and evoked by the bracing air of Amiata and its surroundings.
The jurisdicavidic community is founded around Lazzaretti and thanks to his preaching and is inspired by the law of Davide, which grows to the point of alarming the Church. Lazzaretti is thus condemned as a heretic and excommunicated. He proclaims himself “Christ the Duce and Judge” and continues his mission until he is killed at the conclusion of a procession from Monte Labbro to Arcidosso. Buried in Santa Fiora, in deconsecrated ground, his remains will be studied by the criminal anthropologist Cesare Lombroso.
His followers dispersed, but there are those who swear that even today the jurisdavidic preaching continues through the last priests who, during the nights of August, gather in the crypt on the top Mount Labbro and celebrate rites and processions in memory of their prophet.
Today, the history of Lazzaretti and the material culture that produced his community are preserved in the Centro Studi dedicated to him at Arcidosso. (www.centrostudilazzaretti.it, with an exhibition on Lazzaretti still underway).

WHY I LOVE THIS STORY
Davide Lazzaretti is undoubtedly one of the leading figures of the Enchanted Mountain, with a complex personality and a partly mysterious life.
It is thanks to the unusual story of his life and his social commitment that Lazzaretti provides many literary ideas.
It is even more extraordinary when framed in the time in which he lived: many have already written about him, many will continue to do so, but perhaps no one will fully reveal his mysteries.
Anna Donati will be fascinated by jurisdavidic mysticism as she gets closer to it and will find inspiration for the solution of her cases.
It is not possible not to write about him …

(I thank doct. Eleonora Mancini Dupont for texts and for the images professor Anna Scattigno, president of the study Centre Lazzaretti)