Palermo, 1783: The barons pursue their feuds and petty plotting. Their wives indulge in forbidden French novels. And the porcine abbot Vella, eager to curry favour with Naples, 'invents' an ancient Arabic chronicle, The Council of Egypt, that enhances the rights of some families, rewriting Sicilian history. Over the ironies of plot and character, hangs the crueller irony of history. In the evocation of a country, its people and its traditions, this is Sciascia's largest and most vivid canvas.
