The Enchantress of Florence is structured on the story-within-story pattern, involving historical and imaginary characters - a narrator: Niccolo Vespucci, an enchantress: Qara Koz, an emperor:
Akbar the Great, a Florentine, a disabused Republican turned a political philosopher: Niccolo Machiavelli, a first minister, pirates, explorers, queens.
Other highlights include Agra Fort, the onion-domed Jama Masjid mosque and the nearby tomb of
Akbar the Great at Sikandra.
I mistakenly thought that it was related to Mariam Zamani Begum, the Christian wife of
Akbar the Great. Let me make it clear, there are some historians who dispute her religiosity.
Dirk Collier, a lawyer by profession who works in a pharmaceutical company in Belgium and is a visiting professor at a Belgian univeristy, called his fact-laded-novel "The Emperor's Writing, memories of
Akbar the Great." He inaugurated the publication of the book in Belgium at a ceremony held in the Indian embassy in Brussels yesterday.It was while researching the history of Goa and the first pre-colonial contacts with India and the nascent imperialist European powers that Collier first came across references to Akbar.
While the art of manuscript illustration was reaching its zenith in Italy, miniature painting was just taking hold in Northern India under the patronage of the Mughal emperor,
Akbar the Great (reigned 1556-1605).
The film, heavily fancied beforehand, traces the rise of the Mughal emperor
Akbar The Great, a Muslim, and his love affair with his Hindu wife, played in the film by Aishwarya Rai Bachchan.
The novel begins with the arrival of a mysterious yellow-haired stranger at the palace of
Akbar the Great. The stranger, calling himself "Mogor dell' Amore," the Mughal of Love, claims that he has a story to tell, and a secret, which can only be recounted to the emperor himself.
The ship is on its way to the court of
Akbar the Great of India, and the stowaway, after killing the captain, steals the greatest treasure of all--a secret letter of assignment as English Ambassador to the court of Akbar of India.
He travels to the court of the Mughal Emperor
Akbar the Great in India to regale him with a fantastical tale which purportedly binds the two together.
Within a short span of time his grandson,
Akbar the Great, had overcome this civilisation-driven incomprehension to such an extent that he virtually tried to synthesise a new religion from elements of Islam and Hinduism.