WHAIWHAI

October 27th, 1954: Twenty unidentified flying objects hover through the sky above Florence and fly over the city’s most famous monuments for fifteen minutes. While everyone leans their heads back and stares, no one realizes what’s really happening. The extraterrestrials are contacting someone, Cosimo Rinaldi, a Florentine who is also an expert on the city. From that moment on, he dedicates his life to searching for a meteorite that fell to Earth nine hundred years before; this meteorite is a sacred artifact for the alien visitors. More than fifty years later, Cosimo dies mysteriously. Finding the key to the mystery has now been thrust upon Alfredo, a young man who was a member of Cosimo’s UFO club and had been intrigued by Cosimo’s silence for some time. He is convinced that Florence, as home to the greatest figures of the Renaissance, is a unique, extraordinary city – and that the explanation for this is not entirely rational. Suddenly Alfredo disappears. Where did he end up? Who can complete his search? What did those aliens want back in 1954? Why indeed was Florence the cradle of the Renaissance?

Luciano Artusi was born on January 11, 1932 in Florence. He has lived his entire life there, in a symbiotic relationship with the city. Since 1952 he has been a member of Calcio Storico Fiorentino, an association that has revived an early form of football which dates back to 16th century Florence, and has fulfilled the duties of Director of the association since 1960. His other titles include Cavaliere al Merito (Knight of Merit) of the Italian Republic, President of the Toponymy Commission of the City of Flor- ence, and Deputy Vice President of the Italian Federation of Historic Games. A scholar of Florentine history, he has divulged his knowledge of the city in newspaper articles, periodicals and lectures; he is author of over fifty publications about Florence and Tuscany.