What happens to a country when a three-year-old child is at the head of the state? This is the initial question with which this study begins. The book is conceived as a kind of experiment: studying the vicissitudes of the political crisis that Russia experienced during the childhood of Ivan the Terrible, the author sought to understand how the Russian monarchy of the 16th century was structured, what role was assigned to the sovereign himself, and what role to his advisers: the boyars , butlers, treasurers, clerks. In the foreground of the narrative are outbreaks of court struggle, clashes between ambitious aristocrats, palace coups, disgraces, executions and rebellions; but behind this series of events the contours of long-term structures emerge, the archaic nature of the Russian supreme power emerges (especially in comparison with the European kingdoms of the early modern era) and at the same time the growing role of the nascent bureaucracy in the affairs of everyday government.