Readers of my debut novel, Lucia’s Renaissance, have insisted it needed a sequel “yesterday.” My apologies if you’re among those frustrated souls!
What’s taking me so long?
Research! I’ve been on a quest to pursue the trails of Italian followers of Martin Luther, and my penchant for getting the historical details right slows down the writing considerably.
Rome’s Inquisition kept its eyes and ears on those 16th-century Italian heretics, so they did their best to conceal their beliefs and activities (which makes it all the harder to track them down 500+ years later). But I’ve found breadcrumbs (heresy trial records, journals, histories) along the trail!
What happened to Luther’s Italian followers?
Here’s what I’ve found so far:
- Some managed to hide in place (concealing or abandoning their beliefs)
- Some were arrested by the Inquisition, tried, and executed or imprisoned
- Some fled to (temporarily) safer parts of Italy
- Some emigrated to northern Europe: Switzerland, Germany, England, France
- The Waldensians, a group living in the mountains and valleys near the French border, held reformed beliefs long before Luther and survived longer than any other Italian followers of the Reformation. Their story of persecution and resistance fascinates me, and I’ll talk more about them in my next post.
With so many trails to pursue, I’ve been busy deciding which way my characters will go.
What would you have done if you’d lived in Italy at that time?