A Genoese writer chronicles his family's history over the entire Fifteenth Century, focusing on the adventures of his brother, Alfredo, a merchant-ship captain. Alfredo is the Italian hero of a long series of adventures, on the seas and in fourteen countries of Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. The story eases the reader effortlessly through shipwrecks, mutiny, slavery, and attacks on pirate ships. Alfredo, and his long-time friends Leonardo da Vinci and Christoforo Columbo, play pivotal parts in land battles as well as the search for a new world beyond the western ocean. A reviewer wrote: "The Barnarti Chronicle is a story worth waiting five centuries to tell."