Abdallah Mohamed ben Olman, the ambassador of Morocco, finds himself in Palermo in December 1782 due to a storm that has shipwrecked his vessel on the Sicilian shores. It is this circumstance that ignites in the mind of Abate Vella, a Maltese tasked with showing the ambassador the beauties of Palermo, an audacious plan: to transform the Arabic manuscript of any account of the prophet's life, preserved on the island, into a shocking political text, Il Consiglio d’Egitto, which would allow for the abolition of all feudal privileges and could therefore serve as a spark for a revolutionary plot. (from Adelphi)
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