Tom Swan and the Head of St George

The first Tom Swan serial begins in the closing years of the Hundred Years’ War and follows a young English merchant-scholar into Renaissance Italy and the eastern Mediterranean. Swan seeks manuscripts, relics and classical objects but repeatedly becomes useful to cardinals, merchants and rulers who need an adaptable courier and spy.

From Castillon and Venice to Constantinople, Rhodes and Chios, the six instalments transform Swan from an improvising survivor into a reluctant knight and leader. Scholarship, theft and intelligence work overlap as the fall of Byzantium and expansion of Ottoman power turn antiquities into objects of diplomatic and strategic value.