The Crotone Code. The Trireme of Madrid

One Monday in September, off Capo Colonna in southern Italy, underwater archaeologist Valeria Castoldi brings up a lead anchor stock two and a half thousand years old. It was dedicated to Hera by Phayllus of Crotone, the athlete who fought at Salamis with a ship fitted out at his own expense, the only Greek from the West to do so. Beneath the dedication is a word no votive offering should ever contain: ΠΡΟΔΟΣΙΑ. Betrayal.

That same day in Madrid, the Prime Minister of Spain signs a decree closing ports, airports and bases to weapons bound for the war. One minute later, on the markets, the attack on Spanish government bonds begins.

The two stories share the same enemy: the "Guardians of the Strait," merchants who twenty-five centuries ago lent money to the King of Persia against the Greeks, and whose heirs have financed every side of every war ever since. The anchor stock hides a code that could destroy them. In eight days, hunted, stripped of her job and her name, Valeria must read it before they do: from the length of a legendary jump to the stars of a constellation, from Crotone to the sanctuary of Delphi. In Madrid, meanwhile, one man must decide whether to save himself with the same weapons as those who are attacking him.

An archaeological and political thriller that weaves together ancient Magna Graecia and today's Europe, the sea and the markets, memory and the courage not to watch from afar.

"Because there are those who fight wars. And those who, since the beginning, have merely made them possible."

The second novel by Mario Raniolo, painter and author of «The Colour of Matter» and «Matter Doesn't Lie».
318 pages · 17.8 × 25.4 cm · paperback
Published by MArt Srl, 2026