Italy

Commissioned in 1750, the Palazzo Venier was planned as a testimony to the power and wealth of a great Venetian family, but the fortunes of the Venier family waned....

No city stirs the imagination more than Venice. From the richly ornamented palaces emerging from the waters of the Grand Canal to the dazzling sites of Piazza San Marco, visitors and residents alike sense they are entering, as fourteenth-century poet Petrarch remarked, “another world.”....

The startling truth behind one of the most notorious dynasties in history is revealed in a remarkable new account by the acclaimed author of The Tudors and A World Undone. Sweeping aside the gossip, slander, and distortion that have shrouded the Borgias for centuries, G. J. Meyer offers an...

Tourists, armchair travelers, and historians will all delight in this fluid narrative that can be read straight through, dipped into over time, or used as a reference guide to each period in Sicily's fascinating tale....

Naples '44 is an unflinching autobiographical account of a year in Naples after the armistice and Allied landings in Sorrento in 1943. Working as a British counterintelligence officer under the Allied occupation, Lewis documents the rich pageant of life in the city and its surrounding areas....

""Tantalizing"" - NPR “A thrilling detective story… Stapinski pursues the study of her family’s criminal genealogy with unexpected emotional results.” — Library Journal A writer goes deep into the heart of Italy to unravel a century-old family mystery in this spellbinding memoir that...

The brilliance of the Renaissance laid the foundation of the modern world. Textbooks tell us that it came about as a result of a rediscovery of the ideas and ideals of classical Greece and Rome. But now bestselling historian Gavin Menzies makes the startling argument that in the year 1434...

In the early morning of 6 May, 1527, the 20,000 starving, unpaid troops of Emperor Charles V began their assault on the great walls of Rome. After only a few hours they had overcome the barricades; the city into which they streamed was now in their grip....

Before the Romans could become masters of the Mediterranean, they had to first conquer the people of their own peninsula.

John Hooper's marvelously entertaining and perceptive new book is ideal for anyone seeking to understand contemporary Italy and the unique character of the Italians....

Quattromila anni di storia in quattrocento pagine, senza ridurli a un arido elenco di date e di nomi. Impossibile? Tutt'altro: in questa "Breve storia d'Italia" Alfio Caruso fonde documentazione e divulgazione, raccontando l'Italia attraverso i personaggi, le mode, i costumi, le...

The ancient Romans have one of the richest collections of myths of all the early civilizations. In this book you can discover all the most important Roman gods, important Roman myths, the history of Rome, and much more....

Brunelleschi's Dome is the story of how a Renaissance genius bent men, materials, and the very forces of nature to build an architectural wonder we continue to marvel at today. Denounced at first as a madman, Brunelleschi was celebrated at the end as a genius....

It is not an easy job to draw the border between the history of Italy and the history of Rome. In so many places, the two political and geographical entities collide. They wouldn’t be possible without each other, but they each have their own story....

The Brandenburgers were Hitler's Special Forces, a band of mainly foreign German nationals who used disguise and fluency in other languages to complete daring missions into enemy territory. Overshadowed by stories of their Allied equivalents, their history has largely been ignored....

Starting with the reign of Emperor Gratian (d. 383) Gibbon's survey moves to political and religious issues in the East and West before covering the increasing military power of the Barbarians....

Hardly anyone who was educated was unaware of at least some of the more famous stories of Roman myth and history as told by Titus Livius....

From 1934 until 1944, Mussolini met Hitler numerous times, and the two developed a relationship that affected both countries. While Germany is regarded as the senior power, Christian Goeschel demonstrates just how much history has underrepresented Mussolini's influence on his German ally....

Sicily has always acted as a gateway between Europe and the rest of the world. Fought over by the Phoenicians and Greeks, the Romans, Goths and Byzantines, Arabs and Normans, Germans, and the Spanish and the French for thousands of years, Sicily became a unique melting pot....

A true historical “detective story” full of insight about how we look at art―and the artists and eras that produced it....

Set in the court of Urbino in 1507, Castiglione’s The Book of the Courtier presents an invaluable look at court life and culture during the Renaissance. Over four nights of dialogue, the book explores the key question, ‘What should a courtier be like?’ Listen for more....

Surprisingly neglected in accounts of Allied wartime triumphs, in 1941 British and Commonwealth forces completed a stunning and important victory in East Africa....

Galileo Galilei began his career as a mathematician. Yet as fate would have it, he became far more than a numbers whiz. Here was a true Renaissance man....

How a Florentine orphanage rescued thousands of children and revolutionized childhood education amid the splendor of Renaissance art. The story begins with the abandonment of the newborn Agata Smeralda on February 5, 1445, in Florence’s Hospital of the Innocents, the first—but certainly not...

From Palermo to Castiglione di Sicilia to Alimena, Sicily holds great secrets from the past and unspoken promises. Now, slowly shaking itself free of the Mafia, Sicily is opening itself up to visitors in ways it never has before....