XLIX is a concept album loosely based on The Prince, the renown book written by Niccolò Machiavelli in the XVI century. It is conceived as a sort of journey, an out-of-time chronicle telling the tale of a nameless protagonist who is also the sole point of view of the narration. Embittered and frustrated by the reality he’s living in, the protagonist gains access to a forbidden knowledge when he finds a fictional “lost edition” of Machiavelli’s masterpiece. The cursed tome, recovered amongst the ruins of an ancient city, enables him to effectively embody the skills and qualities of the ultimate ruler. In order to conquer his throne and establish absolute power, the protagonist is forced to follow the historic footsteps of Cesare Borgia, the illegitimate son of Pope Alexander VI and Italian Reinassance warlord whose deeds had inspired Machiavelli’s (in)famous book. As the newborn monarch forces his will upon the world for the purpose of creating an idyllic utopia, an impending awareness starts pervading him: in replicating the achievements of history’s greatest figures he is actually compelled to follow a weird, predetermined path. Maybe, his obsession to replace chaos with order and the great, dreadful actions he’s perpetrating are just clockwork maneuvers taken by someone – or something – sitting at the edge of the cosmic chessboard… Ultimately, XLIX is the story of an epic rise followed by a painful, totalizing fall. Each of the seven songs relates to one of the main as