1843. Two scientists come from Northern Europe to a Lutheran in Sicily, to make a meridian, a sun dial in the cathedral in a city on the island. The guests of the ambitious Canon Stupendo, the Dane Peters and the German Wittelsberg (who will soon take to the sea and leave his companion to his fate) suddenly feel surrounded by and trapped inside an invisible web of hostility and suspicion...
Religious fanatics spy on the work by Peters and Stupendo, and his followers ask him to falsify the line of the meridian, the result of a rigorous mathematical calculation, so as not to disturb the rest of the old nobles who are buried in the church. In reality, the floor, made up of marbles, conceals a very complicated secret. The intrigue is unraveled, with attempts to thwart the discovery by an old aristocratic woman, who’s a bigot and very suspicious; while Peter is encouraged by a woman innkeeper, who’s wise and sensual...
From the book of the same name by Vanni Ronsisvalle.