Showing titles in Italy

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. Sicilian Splendors explores the history, politics, food, Mafia, and people which John Keahey encounters throughout his travels during his return to Sicily. Through conversing with natives and immersing himself in culture, Keahey illustrates a brand new Sicily no one has ever talked about before. 

Anna Del Conte brought Italian cooking to Britain at a time when the nearest most of us came to pasta was a Heinz spaghetti hoop. Sharply observant, evocative, full of tastes and talk of food, hers is a delicious, poignant memoir of an unusual life and the food she loves to cook, which launched a culinary revolution.She arrived in England in 1949 when much of Britain was a culinary wasteland, married an Englishman, and stayed on.

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).

La storia di Giovanni Falcone è quella di un uomo che ha dato un senso profondo a ogni istante della propria esistenza. Talvolta allegro e festaiolo, talvolta austero, diffidente, Falcone era un personaggio incredibilmente complesso: un innovatore, un guerriero, un protagonista indiscusso nella lotta alla mafia e, nonostante ciò, un bersaglio pubblico, costretto a schivare un’infinita serie di attacchi.

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.

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.

Immerse yourself in the history of ancient Rome - from its origins as a small settlement on the Palatine Hill to its peak as an empire reigning over 90 million people, and its tumultuous decline. Covering more than 1,000 years of history, and an empire that stretched from Scotland to Syria, Ancient Rome reveals in vivid detail all of the key political, cultural, and military events that shaped the Roman Empire and explores what it was like to live in a society that laid the foundations for many aspects of the modern world.

In this historical yet somewhat dramatic account of the Roman emperors, you'll find judgments, opinions, and for the most part, hard facts about the rulers of the vast empire that controlled the Mediterranean Sea and beyond for centuries. You'll discover the disgust of historians with Nero's and Caligula's murderous inclinations, their incest, their sexual orgies, and their betrayal. You'll hear of Julius Ceasar's success and totalitarianism during his despot reign.

1742: the famous dome atop Saint Peter's Basilica, designed by Michelangelo, is fractured and threatened with collapse. The dome is the pride of Italy and the largest of its kind anywhere in the world. And no one knows how to fix it. This engaging and colorful narrative tells the overlooked story of how Michelangelo's Dome was saved from disaster by three mathematicians and Pope Benedict XIV, who had asked them for help.

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.

A dispetto delle tante divisioni, storiche e attuali, c'è qualcosa che ci accomuna come italiani. Una serie di tratti che ci rendono immediatamente riconoscibili in qualsiasi luogo del mondo; nel male, ma anche nel bene. Corrado Augias ci accompagna in un viaggio alla scoperta di ciò che definisce il nostro carattere nazionale. Un viaggio particolare, che procede nello spazio e nel tempo, dall'attualità alla ricostruzione storica, passando per il racconto biografico.

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.

Alle due del mattino del 24 ottobre 1917, i cannoni austro-tedeschi cominciarono a colpire le linee italiane. All'alba le Sturmtruppen, protette dalla nebbia, andarono all'assalto. In poche ore, le difese vennero travolte e la sconfitta si trasformò in tragedia nazionale. Oggi sappiamo che quel giorno i nostri soldati hanno combattuto, eccome, finché hanno potuto. Ma perché l'esercito italiano si è rivelato così fragile, fino al punto di crollare?

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...

Foreign correspondent Christine Toomey spent years renovating her glorious, long-abandoned hill-top home in Le Marche, Italy, as a haven of rest from covering crises around the world. But in 2016, the peace and beauty of this beloved landscape were thrown into chaos when a series of powerful earthquakes struck the heart of the Apennines. Wracked with grief for a place still reverberating with seismic aftershocks, Christine set out on a journey of discovery through the history of a landscape that gave birth to so much of Western culture and civilisation.

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.

"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...

Il 9 febbraio 1944 il "Corriere della Sera" diede la notizia dell'arresto di Indro Montanelli, accusato di avere scritto articoli diffamanti sul regime fascista, che in quel momento si trovava sul punto di raggiungere il gruppo partigiano guidato da Filippo Beltrami. Incarcerato insieme alla moglie Maggie a San Vittore, a Milano, il 14 agosto riuscì a fuggire in Svizzera.

During the Age of Discovery a little-known public servant in the Venetian government, Giovambattista Ramusio, anonymously assembled and edited three volumes—over two million words—that revealed our world as never before. It was, to use a current expression, the biggest Wikileak of the Renaissance. In an enthralling narrative, Andrea di Robilant brings to vivid life the man who used all his political skill, along with the help of conniving diplomats and spies, to ferret out a remarkable collection of journals, private letters and classified government reports.

The Republic of Venice: The History of the Venetian Empire and Its Influence across the Mediterranean dives into the city's origin story, how it became one of the most important powers in Europe, and its inevitable undoing. Along with information about important people, places, and events, you will learn about the Venetian Republic like never before.