«It has been debated in the past whether heretics are those who are judged as such by the Church, or whether they are not those who choose to be heretics by rebelling against any and all ecclesiastical communion. In this book one encounters heretics of both the one and the other kind, but not only. … Gathered in the shadow of this word - heresy - in the present volume are a number of surveys and readings of historical sources from the early modern age where are emerging not only opinions in open dissent from those of the current orthodoxy but also early indications of ways of thinking destined to provoke later divisions and conflicts». (From the author’s Foreword)

This ponderous volume collects thirty-seven essays and articles published in the most varied venues, and some unpublished yet, dedicated not only to well-known figures killed in the name of “orthodoxy” – from Giordano Bruno, the philosopher condemned to death by the Catholic Inquisition in 1600, to Miguel Servet, the Spanish physician burned at the stake as an antitrinitarian in 1553 in John Calvin’s Geneva – but also to mystics and visionaries of various kinds and even leading figures in the art world such as Lorenzo Lotto and Michelangelo.

«Reading Prosperi’s book stitches up and restores an old family photo, in remembering the names and thoughts of those who were defeated at the time, the heretics, but who perhaps - I like to believe it - at a distance planted more seeds for the future.» Michela Valente, la Lettura - Corriere della Sera