Showing titles in Italy

Iris Origo, one of the twentieth century's great diarists, was born in England in 1902. As a child, she moved between England, Ireland, Italy and America, never quite belonging anywhere. It was only when she married an Italian man that she came to rest in one country. Fifteen years later, that country would be at war with her own. With piercing insight, Origo documents the grim absurdities that her adopted Italy underwent as war became more and more unavoidable.

‘Never less than compelling … She consistently succeeds in bringing what might otherwise seem dusty and remote to vivid life’ Tom Holland, Literary Review ‘Starts with an erupting volcano – and then gets more exciting … Wonderfully rich, witty, insightful and wide-ranging’ Sarah...

Florence was a major center of middle ages European trade and banking, and also one of the most affluent cities in the world at the time. A lot of academics believe it was the beginning of the Renaissance, and it has been called "The Athens of the Middle Ages". Periods of supremacy by the strong Medici family, and also several spiritual and republican transformations, have marked the nation's unpredictable political history. The city was the capital of the Kingdom of Italy from 1865 to 1871 (developed in 1861).

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.

Nel 1993, dopo anni, viene ritrovato l’Archivio Speciale di Seveso con i documenti relativi all’incidente avvenuto alla fabbrica chimica ICMESA nel 1976 che ha riversato sulla Brianza una nube carica di diossina, trasformando Seveso nella Chernobyl d’Italia.

A concise, star-studded retelling of Italy's past, from Caesar and Augustus to da Vinci and Michelangelo, tracing the story of a country with prodigious global influence—from a foremost author of historic Italy.

Alan Whicker is quite simply a legend. A visionary and master of his craft, his television shows from the fifties to the nineties almost single handed invented the language of travel television and earned him the status of one of the most foremost of British media icons. Yet throughout his forty...

Surprisingly neglected in accounts of Allied wartime triumphs, in 1941 British and Commonwealth forces completed a stunning and important victory in East Africa against an overwhelmingly superior Italian opponent. A hastily formed British-led force, never larger than 70,000 strong, advanced along two fronts to defeat nearly 300,000 Italian and colonial troops.

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.

The remarkable story of the cartographic masterpiece—the Venetian mappa mundi—that revolutionized how we see the world. In 1459 a Venetian monk named Fra Mauro completed an astonishing map of the world. Seven feet in diameter, Fra Mauro's mappamundi is the oldest and most complete Medieval...

Prosegue e termina, con questo quarto volume, il nostro viaggio nella storia dell’omicidio attraverso le età contemporanea, rinascimentale, medioevale e antica. In particolare “Nero come l’Abisso” tratterà del crimine violento durante il periodo delle grandi civiltà: assiri, egizi, greci, romani. Un lungo viaggio dalle origini dell’uomo fino alla caduta dell’Impero Romano, nel 476 dopo Cristo: la chiamano tutti l’età antica, dove affondano le radici della nostra cultura, delle nostre usanze e delle nostre paure più ancestrali.

Catalina Micaela was the younger daughter of Philip II and granddaughter of Catherine de Medici. Aged just seventeen, Catalina married Carlo I, duke of Savoy, and moved from the royal court in Madrid to Turin to begin a new life as a duchess. Overlooked by historians and little known today, Catalina was nonetheless a key figure in sixteenth-century Europe.

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...

Did you know that the Balkan Peninsula is often referred to as the “powder keg of Europe?” It was a term devised in the early 20th century to describe the unstable political situation in the region just before it exploded into a conflict known as the First World War. The Balkan Wars were a series of conflicts fought between the Balkan League (Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece, and Montenegro) and its allies and the Ottoman Empire. But, these wars didn’t involve any of the great European powers such as Germany, France, or the United Kingdom.

Il podcast Sigonella 85 ripercorre le 51 ore drammatiche del dirottamento dell’Achille Lauro, “la nave più bella del mondo“, per poi concentrarsi su ciò che è avvenuto a Sigonella: il primo no detto da un Governo Italiano agli Americani, un rifiuto che ha scatenato la più profonda crisi Italia-USA mai verificatasi dal Dopoguerra, e che ha messo in discussione gli equilibri di tutto il mondo. Un contrasto diplomatico che ha rischiato di trasformarsi in uno scontro militare. Eppure, a sentire chi, quella sera, era presenta a Sigonella, le cose non sarebbero andate così come ci sono sempre state raccontate.

It is a city of seemingly irreconcilable opposites, simultaneously glorious and ghastly. And it is Ben Taylor’s remarkable ability to meld these contradictions into a whole that makes this the exciting and original book it is. He takes his stroll around the bay with the acute sensitivity of a lover, the good humor of a friend, and the wisdom of a seeker who has immersed himself in all aspects of this contrapuntal culture. His curiosity leads him to many byways, both real and metaphoric, and his passion for this ancient city and its people becomes, in his graceful prose and amusing anecdotes, irresistibly contagious.

Did you know that one obscure sheep-herding and wool-making family in the Italian region of Tuscany went from humble beginnings to becoming one of the richest and most influential families of all time? Meet the Medici family, who, in some ways, can be considered to be the godfathers of the Renaissance. They patronized Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and Sandro Botticelli, among many other famous artists. They helped to recover many famous ancient Roman and Greek writings and built academies to encourage the spread of learning.

Edda Mussolini was Benito's favourite daughter: spoilt, venal, uneducated but clever, faithless but flamboyant, a brilliant diplomat, wild but brave and ultimately strong and loyal. She was her father's confidante during the 20 years of Fascist rule, acting as envoy to both Germany and Britain, and playing a part in steering Italy to join forces with Hitler. From her early 20s, she was effectively first lady of Italy. She married Galeazzo Ciano, who would become the youngest foreign secretary in Italian history.

Pompeii was destroyed by the horrific eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE, which buried at least 2,000 unlucky people. Pompeii became a mysterious tomb, hiding secrets of Rome and other civilizations that influenced the life and culture of the city and its people. Who were the Pompeiians, and how did they live before that dreadful day? What did the last days of Pompeii look like, and did the Pompeiians know that the fate of their city would be sealed that day, not to be uncovered for centuries to come?

Venice stands, as she loves to tell you, on the frontiers of the east and west, half-way between the setting and the rising sun. Goethe calls her "the market-place of the Morning and the Evening lands". Certainly no city on earth gives a more immediate impression of symmetry and unity, or seems more patently born to greatness.