ITALIAN MYSTERIES

"Italy, land of the sun": or, at least, so goes the old saying. But, perhaps, the definition is mistaken. Otherwise, for what reason did the authors of the first modern horror stories choose "sunny" Italy and not misty England for the setting of dark stories of blood, ghosts, passion, to narrate the horrors of the Castle of Otranto and the grim, intricate mysteries of Udolfo? Those authors had not forgotten that Italy is the country of the Etruscans, the Inquisition, Lucrezia Borgia, Cagliostro, the catacombs, the stone monsters of Roman villas.
Italy, therefore, "Land of the Moon" and of enigmas; a made-to-measure country for Martin Mystére who moved there (to Florence, via dell'Anguillara 2) between 1993 and 1995 for a long stay to investigate the many "Italian Mystéries".
In two years the "Detective of the Impossib e" moved around the peninsula, from Turin to Rome, to lake Maggiore, Milan, Naples, Venice, Spolets, Bologna, Certaldo, Milazzo, Mantova, Lake d'Orta, Ferrara, the river Po region, Vercelli, Spina, Foiano della Chiana, Chiaravalle and, naturally, Florence. His move to Italy was greeted very favourably by the press and by a great number of local Institutions and Associations that wanted him as an exceptional "testimonial" of a wide range of cultural enterprises.