Vatican Secret Archive

During the election of a new Pope in the mid-18th century, famed violinist Antonio Vivaldi learns of a ring of art forgers who are replacing the Vatican’s priceless treasures with expertly-painted fakes. Desperate, the composer hides a message in a special melody, hoping someone, someday, will take down the culprits.... 

In 1982, Italian financier Roberto Calvi, known as “God’s Banker”, was discovered hanging under London’s Blackfriars Bridge. What wasn’t found was the briefcase he was known to have had with him the night before, reportedly stuffed with incriminating documents, a special key, and a computer disk filled with codes, which together unlock a piece of the Vatican’s troubled past. When the briefcase mysteriously reappears in the Vatican Secret Archives, Father Michael Dominic and his team are up against two powerful and enigmatic organizations.

Father Jonah Barlow is dead. The respected Jesuit scholar of apocalyptic studies might have died from a fall in his apartment...or was he pushed? All that is known for sure is that the provocative manuscript he was working on—a book that promised to reveal the upcoming fulfillment of ancient and recent prophecies, including the shocking Third Secret of Fatima—is missing. Two female detectives take on the investigation as a possible homicide, turning to Vatican archivist Father Michael Dominic for his help, since Barlow sent the young priest the only other copy of the manuscript.

Father Michael Dominic is called to France for an unusual assignment. A 14th-century bishop was found in a crypt buried under the burnt remnants of Notre-Dame—but he’s wearing the ring of a cardinal, and two parchment scrolls had been hidden in his garment sleeve. Who was this 700-year-old custodian of carefully guarded secrets?

Inside the jar are several scrolls written by the Essenes 2,000 years earlier, before the Great Jewish Revolt, including one legendary scroll engraved on silver that speaks of what may be the great Lost Treasures of Solomon buried around Jerusalem—consistent with the predictions of the fabled Copper Scroll discovered in 1947 near the Dead Sea.

Father Michael Dominic, prefect of the Vatican Secret Archives in Rome, is entrusted with the mission of transporting the original 17th century trial documents of Galileo to Loyola Law School in Chicago. The stage is set for a modern historical mock trial of Galileo’s original heresy charges, commemorating the 400th anniversary of the legendary event.