Tuscany, November 1943. The village of Le Case is miles from any big city and remains rooted in an earlier century. Seen from Le Case, even the war looks different—mostly a matter of waiting, praying, and mourning. As a fierce winter threatens, an ominous order is issued by the local Fascist authorities: all Jews must be rounded up and detained in the bishop’s villa to await deportation. 

René is the town’s cobbler. A loner, his only friend is the widow Anna, a woman with whom he has been secretly in love for years. When Anna’s son joins the Resistance but is soon killed by the Wehrmacht, the grieving woman vows to continue her son’s mission. René later learns that a group of Resistance fighters has been ambushed and the survivors are imprisoned in the bishop’s villa. A woman is among them, they say, a grieving mother and former inhabitant of Le Case. 

René can no longer stand by and watch as his town, his country, and his one great love become victims of the Nazis and their Fascist enablers, and he decides to take action. Perhaps for the first time in his life.

Based on the true story of a nefarious collaboration between the Catholic diocese of Grosseto and the Fascist authorities, The Bishop’s Villa is a masterful weaving together of fact and fiction by one of Italy’s most exciting young writers.

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“A novel of war and resistance, on not being mere spectators of history.”