Teofil Mihăilescu

Palladium is a classic new age thriller and represents my debut novel in this literary genre. It calls for an adventure with added esoteric value and SF accents, developed in present-day Romania and on Mount Athos, with forays into the history of Romania, in the time of Constantin Brâncoveanu. What about the story depicted in the novel? In 1523, during the pontificate of Pope Clement VII^th, an ancient statue called Palladium disappeared from the Vatican and was hidden in the lining of the sarcophagus of Lorenzo de Medici in Florence. The secret, protected by the Masonic Lodge Opus Palladinum, was discovered by the Vatican in 1691, but the Palladium is saved by the Venerable Master of the Lodge, Anton Maria del Chiaro, who flees to Wallachia, to the court of Prince Constantin Brâncoveanu. In the summer of 2012, a young architect, Alex Vlas, discovers an old sealed Masonic temple and an amazing secret right under his grandparents’ house near Brașov. From this moment on begins an adventure that takes the reader in search of the Palladium, from the Mogoșoaia Palace in the mysterious tunnels under the Bucegi Mountains in Transylvania, from Sinaia to Brașov and to Mount Athos. The novel is a classic thriller, inscribed in the genre of novels signed by famous authors such as Clive Cussler, Tom Clancy, Robert Ludlum or Dan Brown.

Review by Augustin Ioan, Cartea Românească, Nr. 5-6/2015 | Cartea de Arhitectură