The Last Days of the Templars

March 18, 1314: On a small island in the Seine, not far from the gardens of the King of France, a company of soldiers escorts two barefoot men dressed only in white tunics. At the end of the island, a pile of firewood is arranged with a pole in the middle. They are Jacques de Molay and Geoffroy de Charny, Grand Master and Preceptor of Normandy of the Order of the Templars, condemned to be burned at the stake. The end of the Templars involves the main actors of the 14th century in Europe: Philip IV of France, James II of Aragon, Popes Boniface VIII and Clement V, William of Nogaret… With them, two hundred years of glory and pain, heroism and meanness come to an end. These pages will take us into castles and abbeys, council chambers and prisons… to recount the vicissitudes of these knights of Christ in their final, decisive days.

MARIO DAL BELLO

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