In the heart of the library of the palazzo of the Balleani counts in Jesi, in the province of Ancona, lay a codex that would unwittingly find itself being hunted down by none other than the Nazi SS. But why so much fury? You have to know that the codex, called Codex Aesinas, contained the text of Germania by the Roman historian Tacitus, copied in turn from an older and now battered codex from the German abbey of Hersfeld. So far, nothing strange. It should be known, however, that Germany had been a favourite with Germans since Romanticism, as Tacitus described the Germanic peoples there as 'indigenous' and 'not at all mixed' in crossbreeding with other peoples. In short, nothing was more pleasing to the Nazis, who wanted to create a relationship of direct continuity between themselves and the gentes narrated by the Roman historian. When the Führer's advisers heard about the Jesi codex, leaving aside the fact that it was a copy of the German manuscript, and not the original, they decided that they should get hold of it at all costs, as if it were a holy relic. Apparently, it was Hitler himself, during a visit by Mussolini to Germany in 1937, who demanded the manuscript. As was sadly his custom, the Duce submitted to Hitler and pledged to return the codex. The Germans then sent an official request for the purchase, but it was declined by Education Minister Giuseppe Bottai. The minister agreed that a German scholar, who had come to Italy for the occasion, would view and photograph the Codex. However, the Nazis, and Heinrich Himmler in primis, were not appeased, so in the autumn of 1943, following the armistice of 8 September, a handful of SS broke down the door of the Balleani palace, with the specific intent of forcibly removing the codex. However, the Counts had played cunningly and above all in advance, and had hidden the Tacitan manuscript in the basement of another of their residences, in nearby Osimo. The SS searched it too, but the family had already hidden the 'treasure' in a third palace they owned, in the centre of Jesi. And so the Codex Aesinas, one of the most adventurous manuscripts in history, could be preserved in Italy and, after having escaped the 1966 flooding of the Arno River in Florence, where it had been placed in a safe-deposit box by the Balleani family, it became the property of the Italian State and is now in the National Library in Rome.