The Ways of the Magus
Agostino of Ancona

This book tells the story of the journey of Augustine Triumphus — a monk of the Order of Saint Augustine, a theologian, counsellor, and exorcist of the early fourteenth century. His life unfolds in constant motion: from Ancona and Portonovo to Padua and Paris, and then along the eastern roads of the crusaders, through the papal court, and into the monasteries of southern Italy.
Here, the road is not a mere backdrop, but a mode of existence. It is in travel that vows are tested, memory is sharpened, and the true measure of a man becomes visible — that which endures when places, roles, and circumstances are transformed.

Augustine’s childhood unfolds between a merchant household, the port, and the monastic stillness of Portonovo. His early experience trains him at once in calculation and responsibility, in prayer and inner order. It is here that the tension is first formed that will accompany him throughout his life: the union of rigorous thought and spiritual struggle.

His studies in Padua and Paris deepen this same line. University discipline, scholastic precision, and sustained work with texts cultivate in him the habit of thinking consistently and taking responsibility for his conclusions. In the book, knowledge is shown as a labour demanding the same collectedness as prayer.

The journey to the East and Augustine’s encounter with the world of the crusaders become, for him, an experience of life at its utmost intensity. War, fear, human cruelty, and the vulnerability of faith are revealed without embellishment.

This experience does not turn into a heroic episode. It remains in memory as a reminder of how easily faith may be replaced by habit, and service by the mere performance of a role. In the book, the East is a place of inner rupture.

A significant part of Augustine’s life unfolds in close proximity to power: the papal court, the royal chapel, and participation in ecclesiastical and political decisions. The book shows, in a detailed and measured way, how nearness to the throne alters a man and demands constant discernment.

Here, power reveals itself through commissions, signatures, pleas for mercy, and demands for punishment. It is precisely within this sphere that the question of inner integrity and responsibility for one’s word becomes most acute.

Augustine’s practice as an exorcist is presented as a continuation of his wider ministry. It is a work at the boundaries — within the person, within the community, and within the word. It demands sobriety, patience, and a refusal of hasty judgement.

In the book, exorcism is woven into the broader fabric of spiritual combat, where the essential task is to preserve the capacity for discernment without letting it be displaced by fear or zeal.

The book is conceived as a literary biography grounded in real historical soil. It is founded upon the events, figures, and conflicts of the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, as recorded in chronicles, papal documents, university records, and official ecclesiastical sources. The universities of Padua and Paris, the pontificates, political crises, the activity of the orders, the fate of the Templars, the spiritual movements of the age, and the practice of exorcism are all presented within their authentic historical context.

The Author steadily weaves these testimonies into the narrative, preserving the chronology and inner logic of the age. For that reason, the book may be read not only as the personal story of Augustine Triumphus, but also as a unified historical tale of a time in which the ideas of authority, discipline, and spiritual service were formed — ideas that would shape the character of the later Middle Ages.

This book is written as a return to the Author’s own former life. For the Author, Augustine Triumphus is a path once lived, to which, after centuries, he has had to return consciously and with a full sense of responsibility.

What at first appears to be a historical narrative gradually reveals itself as memory: fragmented, embodied, bound to places, discipline, the road, and the inner experience of service. The Author does not draw “interesting stories” from the past, but brings it into order — in the way one brings one’s own life into order when it becomes clear that it has not been completed.

The book does not bring Augustine’s story to a close. It continues it. Here, the past does not withdraw into the archive, but enters the present as an obligation: to preserve clarity, not to let service be replaced by mere role-playing, and not to depart from one’s inner measure when circumstances once again grow severe.