| LA MANO DI GLORIA
Track by track: LA MANO DI GLORIA
2029 In 2029 Italy can be merely considered a geographical concept, as many other countries. The 2012 monetary collapse represented a traumatic event and it started a domino effect, which rapidly redesigned the world equilibrium. A virtual currency to be used in international transactions, and set under the control of a bankers’ governmental super-body, became the uniform co-used by the West. The whole western world was re-thought according to a model that represents an extreme version of the European Union bureaucracy. A new legislation came into force, and it was an exacerbated and even more liberticidal extension of the Lisbon Treaty. After a season characterized by civil war and the secession attempts by several countries, the USA became a military dictatorship backed by big private banks and by criminal cartels, which also refurnished a repressive apparatus to join the army and private contractors. In Europe an occult dictatorship was established, and gathered the ruling elites of the dissolved national states whose cusp was unknown. Actually, the elite consisted of an old esoteric organization, the most powerful and most cruel ever, practising foul ritual and human sacrifices, also mass sacrifices. The criminal use of financial leverage led to ruin the most of the population. Being that all armies and national police were dissolved, the social unrest was calmed down by an international legion of professionals, which reported only to the supranational super-powers. These military and para-military bodies benefited from large autonomy and accomplished their role in the control of the territory in arbitrary and autonomous ways. Intelligence bodies were almost exclusively involved in the detection and repression of internal dissidence, but their main activity aimed to mediate among the opposite positions that arise within the many interest groups. This complex system made of political, industrial-military, criminal, sect, cartel, private finance bodies, and characterized by the incessant resettling of internal hostilities and alliances is called the “Combinat”.
TEMPUS DESTRUENDI A panoramic of dizzy heights appears. Two men free climb a rocky wall suspended in a limbo of emptiness. The peak that they reached and the imposing panorama, which is the privilege of the man who bears to conquer it, accord them an extreme moment of inner peace right before the new iron and fire era which is going to come. The two men have just signed an alliance for an impossible venture, but they still don’t know that also other unaware men wait for sharing their same destiny. The power of the events will induce the two men to take back the action and revolution in the heart and spirit of their hopeless era. Who are these two men and what moved them to make this coalition beyond life and death? -----------------------------------------------------------------
^ top IL BELLO DELLA SFIDA (The Beauty Of The Dare) Do no revolt because it’s right. Do it because it’s beautiful. In synthesis, this is the compendium of Pietro Jorio’s thought. Pietro Jorio is an elegant and daredevil 40 y.o. man who pretends to be a novel XXI century d’Annunzio. Despite his mysterious activities, the strange secret society he has funded and he currently manages, and his aesthete conduct, he is first of all a very ethical man, full of empathy for the living beings and full of love for his land and the incomparable panoramas. He is part of ideological élite and he has a place in the society, therefore he dreams about a new revolutionary era which will start from an aesthetic suggestion that can be defined as a secular jump of the early-1990s avant-gardes. Jorio gathers in himself dissidence and action, like Odysseus, who guided the rescue against usurping Procis who invaded the sacred perimeter of the Unbounded Man. By the way, the fatal archer that will shoot the first arrow needs to be guided by a regal hand, in order to bend. -----------------------------------------------------------------
^ top EDELWEISS Edelweiss Michaeler was a girl who, being a young researcher discovered an innate true love for the arts and traditions of her land, right in the era in which everything was going “global”. Traditional and elegant at the same time, she was an appreciated restorer coming from an old family of Alto Adige. Edelweiss broke the family conventions when she met the man she had always waited for: an Italian doctor with a mysterious past as a dissident. From this relationship the second man of this story will be generated. A free climbing champion, with an irresistible ascending career in the image and advertisement industry, he will return disgusted to his mountains after a series of traumatic events: first of all the end of his mother, Edelweiss. As main expert of devotional art from Alto Adige, she staged a clamorous protest during the removal of an ancient crucifix sculpted by an ancestor of her. This abuse of power, extended to all the sacred ornaments located on the territory, follows the new clear orientation of the new European ruling power. A tragic scuffle ends with the woman’s demise. She is in her early 50s but she hasn’t lost the spirit of the shy and fascinating girl she once was. Yet the day after her death the first uprising fires appear and the movement spontaneously self-nominates due to her death For her son, the need to confront his mother’s past together with the painful memory of her, till the two yet different beauties finally overlap under the same, equally pure name: mother love and just rebellion. Lothar Drusian is 25 years old, he looks like a young god, and he faces the gravity and the fear of emptiness and death. He has a gentleman’s heart, and he still has to discover his real mission on Earth. Only one thing is sure: temporizing makes no sense anymore, and if life still must go on, it will only bloom again in the ruins of the current present. ALTA VIA* An intricate series of events, though terrible, though incredible, connected Pietro Jorio with Lothar Drusian. Indeed, the former one was able to enter in the alpine movement and to redefine its strategy, acting as catalyst of power. The breakdown of the events made Lothar’s separation from his land and family home, (which became at the time the operational centre of the guerrilla forces), inevitable. Lothar took refuge in Jorio’s big and austere property, which was transformed to a bizarre “oneiric” museum located on the pasture of the extreme western Liguria. His host told Lothar about the central role that his “spiritual” land, the so-called, High Way of Liguria Mountains played in the elaboration of his idea. This place is where we first met them: on the mountainside of Mount Bego, the holiest among the Liguria pre-Roman sites. It is a scary mountain, characterized by antediluvian patches and home of the primordial metals. There is a huge natural sanctuary where numinous powers became themselves mountains and ascendant bridge to the house of light and lightning. The peak, which is often threateningly clouded over and hit by storms in every season, is Jorio’s preferred meditation place. The place where all pointless issues become silent and let the deepest and truest part of their essence speak: the voice, which is common to the humans of yesterday, today, and tomorrow. *Alta Via Dei Monti Liguri - http://www.parks.it/grandi.itinerari/altavia/Eindex.html ----------------------------------------------------------------- ^ top SUL MIO SANGUE (On My Own Blood) It’s Christmas. The midnight service is celebrated in the church of an ancient convent set on the foot of Aspromonte. Nannies sing in a peaceful and harmonious choir, echoing in the darkness of the aisles and in the figures created by the candlelight. There is only one woman whose voice doesn’t join the choir. The woman appears like a devotee among the others, and she is only outwardly mute. In fact she is raising to God’s Mother a silent prayer that is not orthodox at all. She asks to be understood, whether not forgiven, for the massacre she wants to make with her sole strengths. She was believed dead by the most of the people in the attempt to her husband, her children and several hundreds people’s life, but she survived. She was secretly welcomed in the convent by the abbess, who was actually her older sister, and she remained the Rivara Jonica 'ndrina powerful boss’s wife and right hand. Donna Vittoria Cristaldi-Arboreo, baroness of Rivara, wasn’t born in a criminal environment because she descended from the baronage that ruled for centuries on that land. She received an excellent education. Being very attractive, endowed with a solid grounding and some talent, she started her career in the show business, but she rapidly left it because of an unlucky series of events. Her marriage with a boss became a kind of mortgage on her family’s safety. Time after time she became conscious about her role, and her influence could transform her husband’s Mafioso regency into a quasi-enlightened kingdom. Her clan, proudly independent of the new continental powers, became the target of a conspiracy willing to replace some old cartels with new, better organized and transnational ones. The boss died in an attack and then, during his funeral, the whole church was burst with all the participants. A weird and lucky unexpected event caused the woman’s absence from the church right at the time of the deflagration. Vittoria is now 28 years old, she has a body that could represent a lethal weapon, and she holds a pain in her heart as she had lived for centuries. Around her charismatic figure what remains of the former criminal cartels gathers now secretly, willing to a desperate last action, but she knows that she will lead her personal revenge alone. Aware of the blasphemy of her prayer, nonetheless she wants to recommend herself to the most virtuous woman, the mother of the innocently slaughtered son, the mother who holds in her heart and in her mouth words of forgiveness, as a difference from Vittoria. ----------------------------------------------------------------- ^ top L'ANARCA (The Anarch) Fosco Pardini was diagnosed psychotic and sociopath delirious inclinations. Actually his family was well known since generations in the area of Volterra for the presence of odd figures, half genius and half mad. But the Pardinis, together with only other two families from Volterra, since three centuries guarded – through an handing over between the first-born males – a disconcerting secret. Being the last alive heir of this secular enigma, signed by the mother’s early abandonment and by the father’s premature death, Fosco grew up with an uncle whose he owes the two pillars of his life: the art craft skills, and the anarchic ideal. Yet Fosco, whose growing neurosis took him to even more heretical and individual positions, became a dark horse after the loss of this last beloved one. And with a dog found along the way he signed his alliance. He was an experienced connoisseur of the subsoil, as pertained to the descendant of the most famous grave robber ever born. Once at night he witnessed (unseen) an illegal ceremony whose cruel ending took his neurosis to an extreme point, unveiling him the inner nature of the secret power that controlled all the sectors of the new European super-State. This event drove him to think about his condition of man alone against the revealed Evil, and took Fosco to redefine his idea of the world. Ability and creativity were his only allies and his action became inevitable because he was not able to live with such villains anymore. Moreover, the impressive landscape of his native land, an area of Tuscany characterized by unexpected sulphurous shades, inspired him from the voices of his ancestors. Voices that only he could hear and that indicated him the way and the target. Fosco is now 27 years old and he seems like a ruffled messiah by icy eyes. Driven insane by anger and still full of dreams, he is a living weapon thrown against the iniquities. -----------------------------------------------------------------
^ top PORTATORI DEL FUOCO (The Fire-bringers) The Meeting of the rising religions and alternative spiritualities of Triora is one of those public events where collective anxiety for the loss of the spiritual reference point is deeply felt, but it also represents the chance for the new power structure, which hides its abominable essence under the mask of ecumenism, to show itself around. The ancient mountain village at the foot of Maritime Alps serves as evocative frame for the event, but four figures are going to honour its sinister reputation. They are Pietro Jorio and Lothar Drusian, the perfect intruders, Fosco Pardini, who drives and old UAZ car belonged to the soviet army and now transformed in a car bomb, and Vittoria Cristaldi, dressed like a nun. She comes together with a religious delegation, and she is armed only with a blade that hides a seventeenth-century neck crucifix. These four figures stare at the same target: the High Special Commissioner for Justice Rinaldo Tranquilli. Everybody has a good reason to consider him the key man of the sinister interface of the power, as well as the main responsible and mandatory of the massacres that covered the country with blood. Next to the officer another central figure stands: Gloria Von Rosenroth, his official lover and well-known media celebrity. The woman, a former killer in the pay of the German secret services, is the supreme priestess of the esoteric Schola that controls all the glands of power in the Western world. As the bull that enters the arena with few probabilities to remain alive, but determined to fight till the last breath, the four figures break into the meeting arena and, despite the imposing security measures, they arrive very close to the target, which remains miraculously alive indeed. Gloria, the “Supreme Mother”, falls dead on the floor. The attack causes a massacre and obtains international echo. Even if the attack failed to hit its main objective, it strengthen the fellowship of the four conspirators who, having managed to elude the massive man-hunting, have now to share the same refuge and trust each others. -----------------------------------------------------------------
^ top LE STELLE E I FALO' (The Stars And The Bonfires) Several months have passed and the scenario has fast changed. Throughout the vicissitudes, the four fellows, who were so different once, are now brothers in arms linked by strong and complex feelings. In the while, despite the controls carried out by the apparatus, Jorio’s strategy was able to catch the media and public opinion attention. He defines the final idea looking at the odd Fosco while staring, just like hypnotized, to Gloria’s left hand that was divided by her body by the grenade thrown by the bomber from Volterra. The same macabre trophy, suitably worked out by a group of trusted women from Triora still aware of their ancestor witches’ practices, inspires now Jorio an unscrupulous media operation. Thus, the ancient ceremony of “The Hand Of Glory”* is launched via web together with the manifesto of an unusual subversive political-artistic movement. The idea hits the target: the apparatus and the public opinion consider them a new powerful organization, whilst only few members compose it. As a consequence, new actions, yet cruel, yet symbolic, but always characterized by mocking demystification, induce emulation among the population suffocated by the most oppressive political power ever seen in the European history. The consecration of the movement takes place during the night of the summer solstice in 2029. In that occasion, Jorio takes back into life an old ceremony belonged to the most archaic lineage from Liguria. Three huge fires are lit on the top of the three sacred peaks of the long mountainous arch in Liguria: westwards on Bego, in the middle on Beigua, and eastwards on Sangro, which is located in the Apuan Alps. The ceremony consists of an old war ritual once used to gather all the enclaves, even the remotest ones, to face the common risk, and to restate the alliance with the natural and spiritual forces within the sacred borders of the lineage. Aspirant fighters coming from all the “hot spots” take part in the event and determine the transformation of the organization from virtual into real. Vittoria, the only woman actively involved in the operation, while still wearing mourning and being only keen to fulfil her revenge, starts looking with unexpected feelings at the man which became the arbiter of their lives, and who takes deep care of her. The most gallant man left on Earth: Pietro Jorio. * Hand of Glory - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand_of_Glory In our story, it's the name of the rebellious movement led by Pietro Jorio. -----------------------------------------------------------------
^ top LA MANO DI GLORIA (The Hand Of Glory / Gloria's Hand*) Pietro Jorio convenes, for the first and last time, the representatives of the underground movement that spread in all the country as a fire along the whole Apennine dorsal. In the middle of the night, he pronounces in front of his fellows and of the delegates of strategically allied organizations, like Edelweiss or the French Nouvel Hexagone, a speech which is at the same time its debut as leader and, as Vittoria realizes, his farewell to life. While defining the disproportion of the fight between the rebels and all the apparatus linked to the power that he calls the “Combinat”, Jorio clarifies that only who dares always the inexorable faith could expect to oppose successfully the outstanding power of the Combinat. The inexorable faith passes through the willingness to sacrifice life, an unprecedented thing for the Western man. *In Italian “Hand Of Glory” can be translated as “Gloria's Hand” as well. It's a pun. -----------------------------------------------------------------
^ top CANZONE DELL'ETERNA AURORA (The Song Of The Eternal Dawn) Acting autonomously, proudly and with abilities that attract the fellows’ praise, Vittoria adds another important step to her revenge. She takes advantage of the unscrupulous and sensual disposition that characterized her since her youth. Under the other fellows’ eyes, the umpteenth transformation of this woman, who embodies now several female archetypes, finally takes place. Thus, all the moral and formal obstacles cease in front of the passion that, like fire under the ashes, grows between Vittoria and Jorio. Holding a special place in her heart for her beloved ones’, Vittoria stops to oppose the visceral evidence, the predestination to be together with the only man who is able to conceive action, thought and life itself as a kind on uninterrupted Work of Art. Aware of the existential precariousness caused by their choice, she stares at the possibility of the eternal through the deep communion of souls and bodies. In that interlude the seed that will assure the persistence of Jorio’s idea through time is thrown: the woman gets known that she is pregnant, but coherently with the special nature of their linkage, she chooses not to tell it to Jorio in order not to interfere in his brave plan. ----------------------------------------------------------------- ^ top DELLA MORTE ME NE RIDO (Jeering At Death) Jorio conceives a crazy plan supported by the best among his fellows and by numerous volunteers from the allied organizations. A weird gangster-businessman from Marseille supplies them the weapons they need for this epochal attack. The annual meeting of the ineffable Club Vanderberg, which gathers the bulk of the world economy and financial sector and the Cusp organizational chart, which is at the top of the Schola esoterica, will take place in a luxurious hotel in Venice. Here, despite the capillarity of the security measures and the presence of the western secret agents, the attack conceived to wipe out the owners of the world takes place. During the preparatory phase Jorio is seduced by the idea to recede from the action and from fighting: the new love absorbs him completely, and he is truly tempted to start a new life together with Vittoria. But he is well aware of the vast and widespread implications of his plan and of its important expectations. A new consciousness of the uniqueness of life catches him, and he realizes that this last love represents the peak of it. From this peak, sooner or later, he will get off again. All these things strengthen the feeling that, in order to be completed and fruitful, his idea has to lead to the extreme sacrifice: the signature on the masterpiece that makes the world a pliable material. The action will finally take place and Vittoria, while dying inside, stoically chooses not to show him her feelings. ----------------------------------------------------------------- ^ top ULTIMA STAZIONE (Last Station) Similarly to the last station of the Via Crucis, Pietro Jorio is close to his end. Being imprisoned in a maximum-security prison, he is condemned to death after a sensational process. The attack took place breaking through the personalities and their security guards. Also, the most of the assaulters died, whilst a small number managed to disappear into the crowd. Someone was captured, and Pietro was there. Now, in the last phases of the process he claims back the whole political moral and historical responsibility for the attack. His condemnation to death is ineluctable. He will be the first one sentenced using a new hanging system, and screened on TV in all the European countries. The High Commissioner Tranquilli is absolutely sure of the victory that will pave him the way to his secret escalation to the top of the power. A new, unfair trap is ideated against Jorio even in his last moments, but this “odd strategist of dreams” will find a way to mess it up. The man spends his last hours thinking about his loved ones, his unique life and his unbounded love for Vittoria. A kind of word-of-mouth message spread within the prison informs him about the new truth: a child will be born and will grow up surrounded by the attentions of Jorio’s brothers in arms. -----------------------------------------------------------------
^ top NELL'ORA DELL'ADDIO (In Times Of Goodbye) Pietro Jorio disposes of everything: in this way, none of his properties will be linked to him, including his family house, which became in the while Vittoria’s refuge and his friends’ operative base. The fight continues and, as Pietro punctually already foresaw, riots break out and critical areas multiply. The last look at the era in which the story is set highlights a world that is at the border of the abyss. The final remarks are left to the storyteller, who observes the events from a point in the future which emerged by the abyss after the long struggles. A future that shows that even the craziest dream can fecundate the world, if we are willing to see it through.
Translations by Irene Monasterolo
|
||
| biography | discography |in studio |buy now | |
