The Maltese note first - the Maltese sadist bishop.

Along the long list of people who in one way or another had to do with her family along the years, Oriana Fallaci mentions, without saying he was a Maltese, a bishop. Fra Paulo Micallef was an archbishop of Pisa and you can find a memorial commemorating him next to the High Altar of the Duomo of Pisa.

He was an Augustinian friar, like the present Pope, but also like Martin Luther. He became Archbishop of Pisa in 1871 after having been Bishop of Malta for just two years.

The usual hagiographers praise him for his humble and saintly character but not Fallaci.

He comes into the story as rector of the Pisa seminary who installed a reign of terror among the young seminarians, insisting on penance and fasting, whereas on the one occasion the young seminarian came across him he was dripping with jewels and his rotund figure did not show much evidence of fasting. A later encounter, when the seminarian had already been sent away, shows a more humane approach.

Anyway this was just a small mention which I investigated.

How many times we played with the idea of going back in the history of our families and finding out our roots? But then did nothing about it.

Fallaci did it at a huge cost and worked on it while she was dying with the disease that killed her. She was working on it in New York on 9/11 and continued working on it even while writing other books which made her famous all over the world.

Her story begins in 1773 when Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson came up with the idea of taking some Tuscan farmers to Virginia, whose climate mirrored that of Chianti, to establish a new Chianti there.

The choice of the volunteers was left in the hands of a priest and among those chosen was Carlo Fallaci, at that time aged 20. He was considered as the black sheep of the deeply religious family.

The priest chose Carlo, who he had taught to read and write. Carlo set off one night in August from Vitigliano di Sotto in Tuscany where the family had been living since the Black Death of 1348. By daybreak he was, as agreed, in Florence, 20 miles away, where he had never been. He met the other volunteers, all country yokels but they were soon scared off by a man who told them America would be their death. Hearing this, they ran away, except Carlo who stayed there at the Loggia dei Lanzi reading a book.

When the man who was meant to meet them turned up, late, all he saw was a youth reading a book and he concluded the volunteers had all run away.

Angry, Carlo returned home where he found his father had been kicked by a bad-tempered mule and was dying. Although at death's door, Carlo's father gave him some useful tips on farming and also a jar-full of golden coins to help him.

Then he died and Carlo put all his efforts into the farm and became a religious man. He and his brother worked hard and after some years managed to purchase a far better farm from a man who had always been their enemy.

Fulfilled only partially, Carlo felt it was time for him to get married. He sent for a marriage broker and after some time this came up with a name. Enter the second person of this saga, Caterina Zani.

There was, however, one problem: Zani was as heretic as Carlo's family was devout. Her grandmother, Ildebranda, had been executed by fire for cooking a lamb in Lent.

Caterina never forgot this and reminded all of this. Besides, she, brought up in a family of males, did all that males do - ride horses, till the fields, swear - better than the males.

The story how Carlo went to meet her, at a fair, and somehow they hit it off, is well worth reading it all. The book's name relates to a hat with cherries she would be wearing for him to find her.

She first tested him to see if it was true he could read and write. Then she declared she would marry him on condition that he taught her to read and write. And later to do sums.

They got married in a ceremony financed only by her. Many people flocked to the wedding to see this heretic enter church.

The next day, when he took her home, one look at a house full of crucifixes was enough to send her berserk: she got him to remove the religious symbols.

The night that followed was the one when she got pregnant. She kept the secret for two months and when she finally told him she insisted that by the time the baby came she wanted to learn to read and write. With a child around she would not have time.

The child came and was baptised Teresa. But after some months the child fell sick and neither the vet nor the doctor could do anything and the child died. And Caterina went mad.

Then in her own way she found a way out of the madness. First victim was Carlo's brother Gaetano's new wife, Viola, a devout hypocrite who became pregnant. Between the two women there ensued a sort of competition - who would get pregnant first?

Besides, those were the days of the French Revolution and the births marked off the various phases of the Revolution.

I am summarising as much as I can but it's hard to do with a door stopper of more than 800 pages.

The next root of Oriana's family tree is the Launaro one. We meet Francesco and through him one of the most tragic figures of the saga - Maria Ignacia known as Montserrat. Said to be a princess because her father was a royal, she had to be hidden away because she was illegitimate.

Thus she was packed on board a vessel going to Provence and on board she met and fell in love with a sailor. Despite the social differences they matched and she kept giving him children.

Francesco went off to the wars and every time he went back home he got her pregnant again. Montserrat did not seem to resent this.

But the real trouble came when the four sons decided to sail together and were caught up in a huge storm in the same area where their father had met their mother and fell in love with her. This time they were not so lucky, the ship sank and Francesco went back home to tell his wife all her children had died and he was the sole survivor.

Montserrat went mad and ended her life in a madhouse.

Next comes Anastasia Ferrier. Born in a family of Valdesi, considered to be heretics, she had to be hidden away in a remote Alpine valley to escape persecution. When she grew up to be a beautiful girl she moved to Turin, the new capital of Italy, and became a dancer at the Royal Theatre.

There she became friends with Camillo Cavour, who was creating the new Italy. Even more importantly, she became the secret lover of a man so high up in the state that his name could never be revealed.

But she got pregnant and one night she fainted during a performance and was jeered by the audience.

She ran away and ended in Cesena where, on a New Year's Eve she gave birth. She deposited the baby in the Rota, where people left their unwanted babies, and managed to cross the Atlantic and settle in New York.

Then, always resourceful and courageous, she crossed America by stagecoach, fought the Indians, was briefly a Mormon and one in a multi-wife family and then a Madame of an elite whorehouse.

But her conscience was always nagging her about the daughter she had left in the Wheel and she came back to Cesena and managed to find the daughter she had left behind.

This was Giacoma, Oriana's grandmother, blind in one eye.