Just tearing into the long-awaited English translation of Barbara Frale's 2004 book, The Templars: The Secret History Revealed (2009, Arcade Publishing). Frale, a staff historian with the Vatican Secret Archives, is credited with rediscovering in 2001 the Chinon Parchment, the record of the papal investigation into the charges against the medieval Order, and the subsequent pardon to them granted by Pope Clement V.
The brief foreword by Umberto Eco has the following priceless remarks: "No other subject has ever inspired more hacks from more countries throughout time than the Templars. . . The only way to determine if a book on the Templars is serious is to check if it ends in 1314..."Only complaint so far is that it does not have a translation of the Chinon document itself.
