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If you want to discover the captivating history of Italy and Rome, then this audiobook is for you. It includes two books: History of Italy and History of Rome. It covers topics ranging from the founding and early settlements to the modern history.

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, and the project was left abandoned and unfinished. Yet in the early 20th century, it attracted three fascinating women: Luisa Casati, Doris Castlerosse and Peggy Guggenheim.

In the aftermath of the First World War, the seeds of fascism were sown in Italy. While the country reeled in shock, a new movement emerged from the chaos: one that preached hatred for politicians and love for the fatherland; one that promised to build a ‘New Roman Empire’, and make Italy a great power again.

In the six lectures of The Power and Persona of Catherine de’ Medici, you will join Professor William Landon of Northern Kentucky University to explore the impact of an unlikely ruler who established an astonishing political and cultural legacy. As you trace the arc of Catherine’s personal and political life, you’ll learn how, after the death of her husband, King Henry II, she managed to maintain his dynasty through three of her sons.

In one furious week of fighting in December 1943, the First Canadian Infantry Division took Ortona, Italy, from elite German paratroopers ordered to hold the medieval port at all costs. When the battle was over, the Canadians emerged victorious despite heavy losses.

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...

Before the Romans could become masters of the Mediterranean, they had to first conquer the people of their own peninsula. This book explores the origins of Roman imperialism and the creation of Rome's early Italian empire, bringing new light and interpretations to this important but problematic period in Roman history. It explains how and why the Romans were able to expand their influence within Italy, often through the use of armed conflict, laying the foundations for their great imperial project.

The Borgia family have become a byword for evil. Corruption, incest, ruthless megalomania, avarice, and vicious cruelty - all have been associated with their name. And yet, paradoxically, this family lived when the Renaissance was coming into its full flowering in Italy. Examples of infamy flourished alongside some of the finest art produced in western history.

Despite the Roman Empire's famous 500-year reign over Europe, parts of Africa and the Middle East, Italy does not have the same long national history as states such as France or England. Divided for much of its history, Italy's regions have been, at various times, parts of bigger, often antagonistic empires, notably those of Spain and Austria. In addition, its challenging and varied terrain made consolidation of political control all the more difficult.

It was the war that changed everything, and yet it's been mostly forgotten: in 1935, Italy invaded Ethiopia. It dominated newspaper headlines and newsreels. It inspired mass marches in Harlem, a play on Broadway, and independence movements in Africa. As the British Navy sailed into the Mediterranean for a white-knuckle showdown with Italian ships, riots broke out in major cities all over the United States.

When Livy began his epic The History of Rome, he had no idea of the fame and fortune he would eventually attain. He would go on to become the most widely read writer in the Roman Empire and was eagerly sought out and feted like a modern celebrity. And his fame continued to grow after his death. His bombastic style, his intricate and complex sentence structure, and his flair for powerfully recreating the searing drama of historical incidents made him a favorite of teachers and pupils alike.

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. He engineered the perfect placement of brick and stone, built ingenious hoists and cranes to carry an estimated 70 million pounds hundreds of feet into the air, and designed the workers' platforms and routines so carefully that only one man died during the decades of construction.

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...

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. There is suffering and squalor: Criminal gangs are on the rise, along with typhus and black market commerce, and the female population is forced into part-time prostitution. But there is farce and humor, too, witnessed in the Roman uncle paid handsomely simply to appear at funerals.

One Sunday morning in 1993 a 16-year-old girl named Eliza Claps goes missing from a church in the centre of Potenza, Italy. Shortly before her disappearance, Elisa had met Danilo Restivo, a strange local boy with a fetish for cutting women's hair on the back of buses. Elisa's family are convinced that Resitvo is responsible for their daughter's disappearance, but he is protected by local bigwigs: by his Sicilian father, by a doctor with links to organised crime, by a priest who had vices of his own. Years go by, and Elisa's family can find only false leads.

Love history? Know your stuff with History in an Hour. ‘Il Duce’, Benito Mussolini, was one of the key figures in the creation of fascism. Famed for his dictatorial style, his political cunning and admired – initially – by Hitler, Mussolini led the National Fascist Party and ruled Italy...

The complete history of the legendary Venice landmark where Hemingway, Welles, and others were regulars. A meeting place for writers, artists, models, and the stars of stage, screen, and corporate boardrooms, a luxurious restaurant whose fabulous concoctions and timeless decor have often been imitated but never matched, Harry’s Bar in Venice has remained one of the world’s most renowned watering holes for more than 60 years.

Meditations is former US President Bill Clinton's favorite book. This audio consists of a series of personal writings by Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor AD 161-180, setting forth his ideas on Stoic philosophy.

For listeners eager to experience Gibbon’s brilliant primary historicism, to understand the long decline of Rome—and the reasons for the Empire’s demise—there exists no better or more accessible condensation of Decline and Fall.

Throughout the 16th century, wars raged across Europe as kings and republics jostled for wealth and power. Yet one man exceeded all these medieval princes of Christendom: Suleiman the Magnificent. As ruler of the Ottoman Empire, he governed 25 million people from Constantinople, his realm stretching from Persia to the Atlantic Ocean. Twice Suleiman attacked the heart of Europe: first the island of Rhodes, home to the Hospitaller Knights, and secondly, Vienna, the gateway city to the continent.