20-24 septembrie 2009 - Biblioteca Metropolitana Bucuresti

The centre and the margins of Europe... 879of the first Christian missionaries, the one who tells Ovid the scene of Jesus’sbirth, to which the Greek philosopher and the Dacian priest took part.Radu Negru, the prince has also in his travelling towards the centre ofEurope several guides: firstly he has Della Porta, the doctor of his familywho ‟initiate him in the secrets of arts and philosophy” and the he isaccompanied and helped during his full of traps and dangers journey by theonly heroic ideas carriers for the defence of Christianity, like for instanceAloisio Loredan or the missionary monk Joaquin, who put their hope inthe East, especially in the forests which give birth and carry the sacreddimension of Wallahia. With the price of his life, brother Joaquin Corderoreleases Radu Negru from the second prison, the Turkish ship, remindinghim again of the ecumenical duty: what I know is that you have to returnthere. You are the prince of the forest. And earlier, at Venice, Aloisio theprince had told him about his faith and about the secret group of artists hewas part of, in the messianic role of the Wallahian forest: ‟A new prophetwill rise sometime in order to preach the crusade against Leviatan. Thatprophet or that Messiah will probably rise from the depths of your forests”.Anyway, Matteo Muriano has in his initiating journey selected guides:Daniil the Anchorite, and Stephan the Voivode, so that ‟with time passingby” he will cure himself from ‟the subtleties (…) of Platonist and of heretic”,in the end being hurt too ‟by the arrow of Voronet which rise to the sky”so that he will remain in the Country of Archers, where ‟Christ is reigningalthough nobody put him on the throne”. In no other Horian novel is theimage of the country and his inhabitants and of the high places recreatedwith such an incandescence and fervour like in Muriano’s monologues; hemakes a large comparison considering the faith and the mentalities of theOrient and Occident – the last one being in disadvantage at the level of theforce of knowledge:‟I had passed into a world which seemed to be born again from the past,kept aside so that people should not forget of how they are (…). Peoplefrom Moldavia respected so much their monasteries so that they lookedlike the paintings from the walls and, at least in my wrong impression aboutthem they never died (…). I had got lost through philosophies and verses,through colours and Carrara’s bodies sculptures for years (…) I had neverbeen happy (…) and I had had to reach precisely this place (…) in order tofind an answer”.The answer was the discovery of the Moldavian churches andmonasteries and especially the discovery of Voronet Monastery.