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Rome
Year 1600
The dawn was still, only the church bell of Sant'Eustachio could be heard on Piazza Navona and the Pantheon. Most were asleep at this time and didn´t wake, probably because they had heard it so many times before. But at the law faculty at Rome's university near the church an old man was awake.
He sat at his writing desk in the glow of a fire whose flames swayed back and forth. He gently lifted his hand to take more ink from his inkwell. With his eyelids half closed, he looked into the fire.
He sighed and took a deep breath.
The man took out a new paper and a stamp to post a letter. He warmed the stamp against a light. It dripped red wax on his writing desk.
With the stamp he burned the seal in the paper:
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