Actors in Campo Sant'Angelo . . .

This morning I was heading towards the bookshop. And I was late. Not that much late but still - late. In any case, while crossing Campo Sant'Angelo in order to get into Calle de la Mandola and then reach Wellington's, I stumbled on a real film star!!!

Indeed he was - I'm pretty sure I was not walking in a dream. And by the way, these things happen, here in Venice. Nothing really new!

Well, the very star was  young British actor  Thomas Brodie-Sangster. He is very well known, nowadays, because he is part of the cast of the Game of Thrones series which I personally don't follow although I know it is the great success of the season.

I do remember him for other roles, though. First thing, he was emperor Romulus Augustus in The Last Legion, a Dino De Laurentiis production from the book by Italian author Valerio Massimo Manfredi.

The plot of both the book and the film is very interesting. Last days of the Roman Empire, in Ravenna, where Romulus lives with his parents and his tutor, the 'magician' Myrdinn Ambrosinus (Ben Kingsley), a former druid coming from Britannia (and the Celtic name should ring a bell, shouldn't it? it's very close to Merlin, actually...)

The Barbarians of Odoacer arrive and the young sovereign is taken to Capri, in captivity. There, he is rescued by Aurelius (Colin Firth), the captain of Legio Nova Invicta, a super brand new troop of soldiers loyal to the Emperor. Actually, they have with them also Mira (Aishwarya Rai), a woman warrior from Constantinople...

To make it very simple, the boy finds Julius Caesar's sword - created out of an extraterrestrial mineral on which there is the following inscription: EX CALIBURnis etc. etc. (rings a bell...?) - and goes to Britain along with Legio Nova Invicta. There they defeat king Vortigern (who was a real charachter, by the by, have a look at Geoffrey of Montmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae...) and establish a 'new' Roman/Celtic Kingdom in Britannia.

The boy, eventually, assumes the name of Pendragon (son of the Dragon) after the insignia of the legion...and his sword, in the last frame of the film, is shot while standing alone in a stone, surrounded by bunches of wild grass.........