Emma of the Ardennes: A Story of Adventure and Friendship in Ninth Century France

A.D. 869

Emma’s future looked bright. King Charles the Bald was marrying her aunt and her father had become his chief advisor. There was even talk of a possible engagement between Emma and the king’s grandson.

Then everything changed. While taking a walk on the grounds of the royal palace at Aachen, she overheard four men discussing the final details of a plot to overthrow the king and banish Emma’s family from the empire. Moreover, this was no ordinary conspiracy. It involved the emperor himself, Pope Hadrian II, King Louis the German, and even Prince Carloman-King Charles’s own son.

With less than a month remaining before the conspirators were planning to strike, what could she do? Without proof, who would believe her? And even if someone did, with the entire empire lined up against her family, what chance did they have?

Emma of the Ardennes tells the story of a struggle between good and evil that will turn church against state, father against son, and brother against brother. It’s a spellbinding tale of ambition, anarchy, and absolute power set against the sprawling medieval canvas of ninth century France.

Vittorio grew up in Brazil and England before coming to the US for college and graduate school. In 2013, he started writing Charlemagne’s Legacy, a short novel set in the final years of the Carolingian Empire. The ＂short novel＂ soon spiraled into a series, of which Emma of the Ardennes (a novella) and the Count of Montferrat (a novel) are the first two books.

A graduate of MIT and the University of Florida, Vittorio lives in New England with his wife and two sons.