A divine talent, an eventful monastic life.

Imagine the peaceful silence of Cluny Abbey in the 14th century, the beating heart of Christianity. There lived Gilles de Rouxville, a Benedictine monk, expert and lover of illuminated manuscripts. For Gilles, his art was more than just a profession, it was a path to holiness.

Overwhelmed by his work, he sometimes lost track of time and felt neither hunger nor fatigue nor the icy cold of Cluny. He even had ‘true visions’ of the drawings and humbly – or perhaps arrogantly – considered himself the ‘hand of God’.

But this extraordinary talent came at a price: his fellow monks, ‘monks, not saints’, envied him deeply. Gilles was often the victim of ridicule and bad jokes, even though this was forbidden by the Holy Rule. Nevertheless, his masterpieces brought honour and prestige to the ‘glorious Abbey of Cluny’.

Gilles’ fame had crossed the mountains and reached Avignon, the seat of the Church’s temporal power. There, Pope Innocent IV was in ‘great torment’.
Despite his luxurious silk bedding and delicacies, the Pope no longer slept and ate almost nothing. The reason for his fear? The ‘demons of doubt’ caused by a strange occurrence in the village of Saint Genis Pouilly.

Persistent rumours reaching the Pope’s eyes and ears from all over the Christian West spoke of a phenomenon known as the ‘Miracle of Saint Genis’.

It was a ‘strange ring-shaped hill’.
Beneath this hill, a ‘world of darkness’ opened up.
The place smelled of sulphur and was infested with parasites, hermits, witches and heretics.

How will this story continue?
Will an artist monk like Gilles de Rouxville succeed in exposing the darkness through his sacred art?