The Dream of Scipio

"In the final days of the Roman Empire, in the years of the Black Death, in the darkest hours of World War II, three men sought refuge from the madness that surrounded them in the realm of ideas. Set in Provence at three different critical moments of Western civilization, The Dream of Scipio follows the fortunes of these men: Manlius Hippomanes, a Gallic aristocrat obsessed with the preservation of Roman civilization; Olivier de Noyen, a poet in the service of a powerful cardinal who is engaged in a treacherous plot to restore the papacy to Rome; and Julien Barneuve, a disaffected intellectual who joins the Vichy government in the hope of rescuing his own sense of humanity. Each man is in love with an extraordinary woman, and each love affair, because of its era, is ill starred."--BOOK JACKET.