Conceived initially as texts for conferences and conventions, the three essays that make up "The Head and the sword" not only collect the stories and the Hospital of the Order known events of St. John of Jerusalem, but also little-known aspects of their millenary presence, the spiritual yearning that animated the founding and an analysis of the relationships with other orders, both Western and Eastern matrix.

What emerges is a vision d 'illuminating together on the Order Hospitaller, involved in assistance to the poor and in defense of the faith, but deep in animated by an intense spiritual quest stretched far beyond the dogmas, intimately linked to the most ancient and full of items traditions shared also by the Middle Eastern Sufi spiritual chivalry.

Concludes the triptych careful analysis of the popular welcome and noble activity and the presence of the Order in the far north Italian, in the area between Novara and Ossola, in which local installations, and events you can re-recognize the same silent spirituality that animated the Knights Hospitallers in Jerusalem, Cyprus, Rhodes, Malta and Europe.

Sponsored by S.O.G.IT. - St. John's relief in Italy, Verbania section.