Set in a 20th-century Italy suspended between futurism and esoteric tradition, the novel explores the contradictions of an era through the story of Efesia Mattarella, a young aspiring inventor, daughter of the spirit medium Eusapia Pallonara and the rationalist illusionist Prospero “Opplà” Mattarella.

Efesia’s life mirrors the history of Italian psychiatry: she is born on February 14th, 1904 — the day the law on forced confinement is passed — and spends most of her life inside an asylum. There, she meets Innocenzo Malatesta, an anarchist committed for political reasons.

Her naive faith in progress clashes with Innocenzo’s rebellious freedom of thought — both crushed by a system that punishes non-conformity and enforces normalization.

Told in the present tense from a deeply immersive first-person perspective, the narrative structure is inspired by the Major Arcana and divided into three acts. A propagandistic prologue, a journalistic epilogue, and a clinical report offer conflicting — and unreliable — points of view.

The events draw upon historical facts and real testimonies.

In the blog, I document the entire workflow: moodboards, research, discarded ideas, character profiles, iconography, motivations, stylistic choices, doubts, thought streams, narratological schemes, case studies, glossary entries, crises, world-building, and draft sketches of the twenty-two Tarot cards.