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History

Monsignore Giuseppe Montesi was a powerful prelate who had been placed in charge of a little-known wing of the Vatican Library that was secretly devoted to occult lore. Like his ancestors stretching back eight centuries before him, Montesi was also the custodian of everything related to the Darkhold.[1]

When a learned priest named Father Ramón Jóquez died in California after having been possessed by the spirit of the evil monk Aelfric,[2] those mysterious circumstances attracted considerable attention to his death. Father Jóquez's papers were sent to the Vatican Library where they were inspected by Montesi who discovered among them the notes that Jóquez had made while translating the true Darkhold for Jack Russell. Although incomplete, these notes were enough to enable Montesi to recreate the incantation from the Darkhold that could be used to destroy vampires, a spell that had long been known as the Montesi Formula. However, vampires who had been assigned to secretly keep watch over the prelate learned of this and informed their master, Count Dracula, that Montesi had obtained a copy of the Montesi Formula. The news caused Dracula to travel to Rome to deal with this threat.[1]

Montesi used the spell to destroy a number of recently-turned vampires while continuing research that he hoped would lead to him finding a way to destroy all vampires. One evening, while walking in Rome, Montesi came across an American tourist being attacked by a female vampire named Maria. After using his cross to force her away from her intended victim, Montesi then recited the spell, causing Maria to burst into flame and burn away to ashes. As he returned to the Vatican, Montesi heard a scream from above that he interpreted as being from a wounded bat. Correctly assuming that the source of that scream had been Dracula in bat form, Montesi chose to mock the vampire, saying that he had been expecting the count but was not quite ready to face him. Montesi then entered the Vatican, confident that no vampire could reach him there, and went to the Archives to continue his research.[3]

Not long afterwards, Montesi was taken completely by surprise when Dracula burst into the room and, before he could react, grabbed the paper containing the incantation from his hand and burned it in the flame of a nearby candle. When Montesi then fled from the room, Dracula initially let him go, intending to let the monk live so that he could spend the rest of his days reliving his defeat. However, only seconds later, Dracula realized that Montesi must have already memorized the spell and began to pursue him. Although weakened by all the crosses, Dracula eventually came to the Sistine Chapel where he found Montesi waiting for him. As the monk began reciting the spell, Dracula lunged at him, grabbing him around the throat to stop him from speaking, and then hurled him down at the floor with enough force to cause a lethal head injury. As Dracula laughed over him, the dying Montesi told the vampire that is was not over because he had, days earlier, mailed a copy of the incantation to Dracula's nemesis, Quincy Harker. As an enraged Dracula fled, other priests entered and found Montesi's dead body.[3][1]

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Powers

As a member of the Montesi family, Giuseppe Montesi was supposedly incorruptible and thus could not be influenced by the Darkhold.

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Notes

  • In Dracula Lives #6, the first story in which it appeared, the spell that Montesi used was not named and only referred to as the "Darkhold incantation." It was first called the Montesi Formula in Giant-Size Dracula #3 in a story in which Elianne Turac had Quincy Harker kidnapped and interrogated in an attempt to get the spell from him. However, Harker insisted that he did not have the spell.
  • In the story that introduced him, Montesi was simply an aged monk who had discovered a copy of the then-unnamed Darkhold incantation while doing research in the Vatican Library. It was only over a decade later, as part of a storyline in which the history of that spell was greatly expanded, that this character was given a first name and revealed to be a member of a family of priests who had been seeking to use the Darkhold to destroy vampires for centuries.
  • Montesi was originally identified as being a monk but it was later revealed that he was actually a prelate, a high-ranking member of the Catholic Church, who only "affected the dress of a monk."

See Also

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References

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