Italy

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....

Fourteenth-century Italy was chaotic: mercenaries swarmed across the land as competing city-states attempted to vie with each other for power, while pestilence and famine decimated populations. Into this cauldron was born Giangalezzo Visconti....

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....

A dark tale of violence, ideals and a country at war, in Blood and Power, historian John Foot draws on decades of research to chart the turbulent years between 1915 and 1945, and beyond....

While they were indeed ostentatious, calculating, worldly, cruel - and even, occasionally, murderous - you may be surprised to find that the Borgias were not terribly different from other powerful and ambitious families of their day....

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....

When we think of ancient Rome, the first notion that comes to mind is the one of the empire, followed by the image of a mighty emperor, his legions, colossal buildings, and the Gladiators. Some may recall the image of a “unified” Europe under a single sovereign - the emperor of Rome....

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....

The word “mafia,” Sicilian in origin, is synonymous with Italy, but Italy is home to several different mafias, with three being particularly notorious....

The history of Naples is long and tortured, or at least for centuries that was how its history has been told. Inhabited almost continuously from the Neolithic era to the present, Naples was founded by the Greeks and conquered by the Romans....

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....

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....

Michelangelo, God's Architect is the first book to tell the full story of Michelangelo's final two decades, when the peerless artist refashioned himself into the master architect of St. Peter’s Basilica and other major buildings....

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....

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

Whether you’re a student of Italian history looking for a refresher or a brand-new learner looking for an introduction, this book is a concise, easy-to-follow overview of the major players, events, and forces in Italian history, from antiquity to today....

In this landmark study of Italy from the 14th through the early 16th centuries, Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt chronicles the rise of Florence and Venice as powerful city-states....

This audio consists of a series of personal writings by Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor AD 161-180, setting forth his ideas on Stoic philosophy....

Ancient Rome is indeed an intriguing subject of history. The Roman Empire maintained European hegemony for half a millennium; it had legendary rulers like Augustus who, as they say, "found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble"....

Venice, 1510. Maria Bartolini wants nothing more than to carry on her father's legacy as a master gilder. Instead, her father has sent her away from the only home she's ever known....