FernFolio

The only son of wealthy noble parents, sixteen year-old Silvano lives for hunting with his falcon, visiting the family farms with his father, enjoying the entertainments of Perugia with his best friend, Gervasio, and worshipping the beautiful Angelica from afar. But when Angelica’s husband is stabbed in the street with Silvano’s dagger, the young man must flee Perugia or face execution for a murder he has not committed.
With his father’s help, Silvano takes sanctuary in the Friary of Giardinetto, where, dressed in the grey robes of a novice, he tries to settle into the simple discipline of the Franciscan Order. He is assigned to help Brother Anselmo, a kind, scholarly man whose expertize in the making of pigments for use in the great murals being created in the basilica of St. Francis in nearby Assisi has recently brought him to Giardinetto. Under Brother Anselmo’s tutelage, Silvano learns how the beautiful and very costly pigments are created, and helps to prepare them for use in the basilica. He spends many hours travelling to and from Assisi with Brother Anselmo, delivering them to the master painters, and comes to know and like the friar.
After her father’s death, Chiara’s impoverished older brother announces that, since there is no money for a dowry and therefore a proper marriage for the young girl, he has decided that she will enter the convent of the Poor Clares, next to the Franciscan Friary of Giardinetto. Though concerned that the girl has no vocation, the Abbess accepts her as a novice, and is pleased at Chiara’s quick intelligence and willingness to work. Among her other duties, Chiara helps Sister Veronica in the convent’s Colour Room, where the sisters and novices prepare pigments for the great basilica in Assisi. She notices the arrival of a handsome young nobleman at the friary next door, and recognizes Silvano when the two of them meet in the basilica, while delivering pigments with Brother Anselmo and Sister Veronica.
Silvano is taken with the lively and beautiful novice, and soon the two young people have struck up a secret friendship, one that has him struggling to recall the face of Angelica, his former beloved, and her uncertain know how to respond when a kind-hearted widow invites Chiara to live with her as her companion.
Then a wealthy merchant is murdered while visiting the friary, and suspicion falls on Silvano. A chance meeting between the merchant’s widow, come to fetch his body home, and Brother Anselmo prompts Silvano and Chiara to realize that the two once knew each other well. A second murder at the friary has all of its inhabitants looking among themselves for the murderer, and Silvano and Brother Anselmo must unite to solve the crimes and save the friary from being closed by the Minister General of the Franciscans.
Set in fourteenth century Italy, The Falconer’s Knot is an exciting tale of intrigue and murder. Author Mary Hoffman paints vividly monastic life in a Franciscan friary and a Poor Clare convent, and brilliantly details the creation of the pigments used in the famous murals of the basilica of St Francis of Assisi.
FernFolio Editor