Aquila, by Vince Rockston – A tale of a friendship between a Pagan lad and a Christian hermit on the Isle of Elba in AD 572. Vince Rockston writes historical fiction addressing contemporary spiritual issues.

Featured

Silvanus is angry. Perplexed. And afraid.

Angry that his dad made him undertake this precarious trek. Perplexed about the future. And afraid of the fearful stone god, Aquila the Avenger, who haunts him wherever he goes. His dream? Escape his island prison and discover the wide world.

What supernatural power is it that brings him instead to old Cerbonius’ cave? And how will this exiled bishop’s uncanny wisdom shape his future?

Not quite as old as Silvanus’ map

Copper engraving by Willem Janszoon and Joan Blaeu, 1644 AD

This is a copper engraving by the Dutch artists Willem Janszoon and Joan Blaeu, based on Giovanni Antonio Magini’s original of 1598. Many thanks to Paolo Ferruzzi, who keeps this map in his Academy of Works of Art in Poggio.

Funnily enough, Silvanus’ map, though less elaborate, looks far more accurate to the modern eye.

Aquila has now made it to the Red Square

Thanks to Polina, the brilliant cartographer who drew the maps of Silvanus’ wanderings in and around Elba, the story has now even visited this center of Russia’s cultural life and top tourist destination.

This map shows the scope of Aquila’s travels so far.

TIRB Review of Aquila

A line in the book that stood out to the reviewer:
“I long for a God who can show me the meaning of life, who can give me a reason to live.”

The International Review of Books has just published the following professional review of Aquila – Can Silvanus escape that god?

Set during the period of Late Antiquity during the 6th century A.D., a young man searches for meaning in a world torn between the prevailing Greco-Roman cultural and religious traditions, and the emerging Germanic and Christian traditions that later formed the foundations of the culture of Europe.

Flying high!

Aquila is getting around. People are reading the book in many unexpected places all over the world.

At one of the thousands of lakes in Finland, near Kaipola

See Aquila’s other adventures in Finland, Lebanon, Cape Verde, Iceland, and even Brazil.

First time in the Southern Hemisphere!

Aquila seems to have got lost among the bananas and coffee beans of Ibatiba, Espirito Santo, Brazil!

How small the world is becoming!

See how Aquila found its way to Lebanon, Cape Verde, Iceland, Finland.

Visiting a Middle Age Castle

Aquila attended one of the most famous opera festivals in the world at the Olavinlinna castle in Savonlinna, Finland. It was built in 1475 to protect Finland (then part of Sweden) from Novgorod (later Russia). Continue reading “Visiting a Middle Age Castle”