The author begins his story by declaring that on one balmy September morning in 1954 a 25-year-old Venetian man steps out of a mansion just off the Grand Canal and into the street:
He was young, perhaps no more than twenty-five, with a darkly handsome patrician face, and was, like most Venetians of his class, exquisitely tailored. He paused for a moment, in front of the great doors of the palazzo and looked up. His wife was at one of the upper windows. He smiled at her and blew her a kiss. She waved back at him. Page 13.
Before the day is through, he will have died unceremoniously, and his body thrown into one of the canals.
The story picks up again on page 23, apparently decades later in another part of the world when a young and wealthy computer programmer walking down East 50th Street in New York, notices in the window of an antique shop an item that catches his eye.
'The window was cluttered with a variety of articles for sale - guitars, typewriters, tape recorders, clocks, golf clubs, and a hodgepodge of jewelry, rings, necklaces, bracelets, and earrings. The medallion itself was large in size, about two inches in diameter, and hung on a gold chain. Mixed with the rest of the jewelry in the window, it was rather inconspicuous. Yet, somehow, it had drawn his attention. Page 27.
and he just has to have it, even if it is overpriced, and not a legitimate hedge against inflation. Even if it is gold, it is possibly overpriced. But the medallion carries a curious coat of arms upon its face, and must have been minted privately by some noble family in Italy. And thus begins a long journey that takes him back to another man's life - and death - in Venice.
Venice is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The islands are in the shallow Venetian Lagoon, an enclosed bay lying between the mouths of the Po and the Piave rivers. In 2020, 258,685 people resided in the Comune di Venezia, of whom around 55,000 live in the historical city of Venice. Together with Padua and Treviso, the city is included in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area (PATREVE), which is considered a statistical metropolitan area, with a total population of 2.6 million.
The Old Man and the Sea is a novella written by the American author Ernest Hemingway in 1951 in Cayo Blanco (Cuba), and published in 1952. It was the last major work of fiction written by Hemingway that was published during his lifetime. One of his most famous works, it tells the story of Santiago, an aging Cuban fisherman who struggles with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream off the coast of Cuba.
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Ca' Rezzonico is a palazzo on the Grand Canal in the Dorsoduro sestiere of Venice, Italy. It is a particularly notable example of the 18th century Venetian baroque and rococo architecture and interior decoration, and displays paintings by the leading Venetian painters of the period, including Francesco Guardi and Giambattista Tiepolo. It is a public museum dedicated to 18th-century Venice and one of the 11 venues managed by the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia.
Across the River and Into the Trees is a novel by American writer Ernest Hemingway, published by Charles Scribner's Sons in 1950, after first being serialized in Cosmopolitan magazine earlier that year. The title is derived from the last words of U.S. Civil War Confederate General Thomas J. (Stonewall) Jackson: “Let us cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees.”
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Venetian Gothic is the term used for the particular form of Italian Gothic architecture typical of Venice, originating in local building requirements, with some influence from Byzantine architecture, and some from Islamic architecture, reflecting Venice's trading network. Very unusually for medieval architecture, the style is both at its most characteristic in secular buildings, and the great majority of survivals are secular.
The Reincarnation of Peter Proud is a 1975 American psychological horror film directed by J. Lee Thompson, and starring Michael Sarrazin, Margot Kidder, and Jennifer O'Neill. It follows a university professor who, after experiencing a series of bizarre nightmares, comes to believe he is the reincarnation of someone else. It is based on the 1973 novel of the same title by Max Ehrlich, who adapted the screenplay.
The Journeyer is a historical novel about Marco Polo, written by Gary Jennings and first published in 1984.
Transmigration is a science fiction book by Scottish writer J. T. McIntosh, published in 1970.
The Reincarnation of Peter Proud was written by popular fiction author Max Ehrlich. It was published in 1974 by Bobbs-Merrill and a year later by Bantam.
Max Simon Ehrlich was an American writer. He is best known for the novel The Reincarnation of Peter Proud and the movie of the same name.
Guido Brunetti is a fictional Italian detective, created by Swiss/American writer Donna Leon. He is a commissario in the Italian State Police, stationed in Venice and a native of that city. Brunetti is the subject of 31 novels: He is also the subject of a German TV film series based on these novels.
The Ca' Sagredo is a 14th-century Byzantine-Gothic style palace located on the corner of the Strada Nuova and Campo Santa Sofia, in the sestiere of Cannaregio in central Venice, Italy. It now faces the Grand Canal (Venice), and across the campo from the Ca' Foscari. On the left side there is the Palazzo Giustinian Pesaro.
Susanna and the Elders is a painting by the Venetian painter Tintoretto. Robusti, also known as Tintoretto or IlFurioso, for the energy and "fury" with which he painted, depicted both sacred and profane subjects in a period sometimes known as the Venetian “golden century”.
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