The Eleventh Sibyl: Abyssus Sibyllae

Michele Sanvico is an Italian physicist and freelance writer committed to the production of advanced inquiries into contemporary topics and matters of public concern, as well as deep investigations of specific historical events and processes. Data mining, sorting, cross-correlation and structuring in a framework model is key to his multidisciplinar work.

He is currently the world leading expert in the legendary tradition of Mount Sibyl and the Lake of Pilate in Italy. His comprehensive research on this topic, summarised in his "The Apennine Sibyl - A Mystery and a Legend" series of articles released on Researchgate.net and Academia.edu, has opened unprecedented perspectives in the study of the two legends, which were once widely known across Europe, and the object of unprofitable studies for more than a century. With the establishment of a connection with the peculiar seismic nature of the territory of central Italy inhabited by the two legendary tales, a fundamental aspect that was completely overlooked in all previous studies, a fresh insight has been finally gained on this specific tradition, paving the way to a new understanding of the whole legendary framework.

For his research on the above topic Michele Sanvico appeared on the Italian TV national broadcast channels RAI1 and RAI2 as professional writer and expert of Italian lore. He also appeared in Sydonia Production's docufiction "The Sibyl - Between Legend and Truth" (2018) as an expert of the Apennine Sibyl's legend.

Michele Sanvico is a concerned writer who has promoted and supported local and nationwide campaigns for the preservation of Italy's historical and natural heritage against land speculation. He regularly releases articles on matters of public concern. His illuminating pieces help the reader gain further, unprecedented insight into critical events and processes that are usually presented by the official media under a single, recurrent perspective. He played a significant role in public debates over reconstruction policies to be applied in central Italy after the seismic events in 2016. He issued a number of feature articles on the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, with the retrieval, elaboration and publication of official data sets which are often neglected by the press.

In 2013 he produced an extensive work, based on original files, on the effective reconstruction of the town of Norcia, central Italy, following the destruction produced by an earthquake in 1979: an Italian tale of success and pride, and at the same time the dreary account of an Italian tendency to swallow and brutally remove its most capable public administrators, when they do not comply with local interests and powers.

He is the author of a short essay on massive urban speculation in Rome after World War II, an astounding description on the process of accumulation of unlimited wealth by selected people to the detriment of the majority of the citizens: a story which is poorly known and hardly addressed by contemporary scholars.

He developed the website "A Guide to Unknown Rome" providing a contemporary Grand Tour experience to tourists visiting Italy's capital city and its artistic attractions.

In 2010, as a freelance writer committed to high-quality storytelling, he released "The Eleventh Sibyl", a fictional novel based on the legendary tradition of the Apennine Sibyl. He his currently releasing his new book: "The sky alone was over our heads - The nineteenth-century discovery of the Sibillini Mountains by the members of the Italian Alpine Club".

He speaks to audiences presenting peformance readings on his books and researches.