Florenzen is a chronicle set in Florence in 1300, the jubilee year of Boniface VIII, drawing on the mythology of Dante’s Divine Comedy. At first it takes place on Earth, when Hell, Purgatory and Paradise were believed to be spilling onto it.
| Type | Chronicle |
| Setting | Florence, 1300 |
| Spanish entry | Florenzen |
Setting
Florence has the Arno, three rings of walls and about 100,000 inhabitants, more than Paris. Since the Ordinances of Justice of 1293 the guilds govern, excluding the magnates and the Ghibellines, whose pole is the Visconti in Milan. The Signoria rules from a new fortified palace guarded by the Marzocco, a human-faced lion with the fleur-de-lis. Six priors hold absolute power for two or three months and must render account. The Guelphs are split into Whites (the Cerchi) and Blacks (the Donati); this division drives the chronicle.
Lineages
There are no races, only lineages, visible in the face; changing group takes generations. The elves are the Guelphs (Welfs): ancient Swabian high nobility tied to the papacy. Opposite them stand the Ghibellines, the Swabians of Frederick II.
Orders and magic
The Templars are too powerful: they move treasure through fortified lodgings, issue letters of credit, and the kings of Europe are in their debt. Magic is understood as dealings with demons; even miracles are suspected. Relics are the market of magic. Latin serves church and diplomacy; Greek is the language of magic; there are also a language of angels and an infernal one.
Story
The gonfalonier of justice, Salvestro de’ Medici, hires the company because the ruling powers do not know them. One of six priors in council, Dante Durante, has had his three children sickened to bend his vote. This leads to the black monks, Rocco, the Donati house and a sealed palace whose Prism mechanism unlocks the vote only when the gems of six towers are gathered.
The company sails from Genoa (with the Carmelite Niki) to Cyprus, where Jacques de Molay sends it against a red dragon at the Horns of Hattin; then to the Holy Land, the gate of Hell near Jerusalem, the forest guarded by Pavura (Fear, the green dragon) and the Nobiskrug, where it settles.
Name
North of the Alps, florenzen meant “to sodomize” and a sodomite was a Florenzer. The city later created the Ufficiale di Notte (Officer of the Night).