In the last five centuries, when there is an apocalyptic event, his name is mentioned, even if only to curse him. His fame has never waned, and he continues to fascinate aspirants, academics and the simply curious, even though the man has been obscured by his work. Especially, Centurie, those prophetic and terribly abstruse verses that always give rise to new interpretations. But who was Nostradamus? How could a man of the 1500’s foresee the rise of Adolf Hitler or the attack on the Twin Towers? Michel de Nostredame was born in 1503 in Provence to a family of Jews converted to Christianity. He was a very successful man of his time: scientist, physician, astrologist, apothecary, philosopher, as well as an attentive observer of the political scene and a spiritual nomad. He trod the earth of every European land bloodied by religious wars and scourged by the Black Death. It was precisely his human and extraordinarily modern way of approaching the victims of the plague that contributed to spreading his name: who was this man that came without a mask and touched the bodies of the sick? How could he remain immune? The path of Nostradamus fatally crossed those of eminent personages of the Renaissance, like his friend and fellow student, Rabelais, or the future queen of France, Caterina de’ Medici, for whom he forged a mysterious jewel. Of Jewish ancestry but with an unshakeable Catholic faith, in that century of great heresies, he always managed to barely elude the Inquisition, to which his many envious enemies would have willingly consigned him. Giuseppe Ivan Lantos, with the pace of the most thrilling of novels, tells us the human yet sensational story of the last real prophet. Powered by rigorous documentation, the book narrates episodes of daily life and creates confidence in what must have been his personality. Finally, it throws a light on the divine mystery of his predictions.