Padre Caro Lorenzo Montanelli Is an elderly Dominican priest. Auxiliary priest actually, vicar of the Parrocchia di Santo Stefano in Bologna. He made an early career and made it to cardinal.

Lorenzo's ambitions, however, drove him to an atrocity with terrible consequences. Out of remorse, he retired from his high office and went to work as a vicar in the quiet city parish in Bologna. To try to forget the past, he turned to the study of medieval writings and concealed his deed for decades.

Until, by a coincidence, young Lily Voynich appears on the scene. Lorenzo trusts the young Irish composer and writer and decides to tell her everything, as a kind of confession to come clean towards the end of his life. Padre Lorenzo's story will form the basis for the novel she writes in the summer of 1895. A novel that will prove to be of great importance to Bolsheviks, Communists and Russian youth.