Category: Italy

By Michael Ennis

Against a teeming canvas of Borgia politics, Niccolò Machiavelli and Leonardo da Vinci come jointly to unmask an enigmatic serial killer, as we study the key background at the back of probably the most debatable works within the western canon, The Prince...
When Pope Alexander dispatches a Vatican courtesan, Damiata, to the distant fort urban of Imola to benefit the reality at the back of the homicide of Juan, his such a lot liked illegitimate son, she can't fail, for the scheming Borgia pope holds her personal younger son hostage. as soon as there, Damiata turns into a pawn within the political intrigues of the pope’s surviving son, the charismatic Duke Valentino, whose personal lifestyles is threatened by means of the condottieri, a robust cabal of mercenary warlords. Damiata suspects that the killer she seeks is without doubt one of the brutal condottierri, and because the murders multiply, her quest grows extra pressing. She enlists assistance from an imprecise Florentine diplomat, Niccolò Machiavelli, and Valentino’s eccentric army engineer, Leonardo da Vinci, who jointly needs to fight to decipher the killer’s taunting riddles: Leonardo together with his groundbreaking “science of remark” and Machiavelli together with his new “science of men.” touring throughout an Italy torn aside via battle, they're going to input a labyrinth of historical superstition and erotic obsession to find at its center a new face of evil—and a fact that might shake the rules of western civilization. 

By Sarah Dunant

NAMED the most effective BOOKS OF THE 12 months via KIRKUS REVIEWS

The New York Times bestselling writer of the acclaimed Italian Renaissance novels—The start of Venus, within the corporation of the Courtesan, and Sacred Hearts—has a superb expertise for respiring lifestyles into heritage. Now Sarah Dunant turns her discerning eye to 1 of the world’s so much fascinating and notorious families—the Borgias—in an engrossing paintings of literary fiction.
 
via the tip of the 15th century, the sweetness and creativity of Italy is matched by way of its brutality and corruption, nowhere greater than in Rome and contained in the Church. whilst Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia buys his approach into the papacy as Alexander VI, he's outlined not only via his wealth or his passionate love for his illegitimate little ones, yet by way of his blood: he's a Spanish Pope in a urban run through Italians. If the Borgias are to triumph, this charismatic, consummate flesh presser with a major urge for food for all times, girls, and tool needs to use papacy and family—in specific, his eldest son, Cesare, and his daughter Lucrezia—in order to succeed.
 
Cesare, with a dazzlingly chilly intelligence and a fair chillier soul, is his greatest—though more and more unstable—weapon. Later immortalized in Machiavelli’s The Prince, he presents the power and the muscle. Lucrezia, loved by means of either males, is the best dynastic device. Twelve years previous while the radical opens, hers is a trip via 3 marriages, and from infantile innocence to painful event, from pawn to political player.
 
Stripping away the myths round the Borgias, Blood & Beauty is an impressive novel that breathes existence into this incredible family members and celebrates the uncooked strength of historical past itself: compelling, advanced and relentless.

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“Dunant transforms the blackhearted Borgias and the conniving courtiers and cardinals of Renaissance Europe into absolutely rounded characters, brimming with existence and lust.”
—The manhattan instances ebook Review
 
“Like Hilary Mantel together with her Cromwell trilogy, [Sarah] Dunant has scaled new heights via refashioning mythic figures in keeping with modern literary style. This intellectually pleasing historic saga, which deals blood and sweetness definitely, yet brains too, is definitely the easiest factor she has performed to date.”
—The Miami Herald
 
“Compelling woman gamers were a attribute of Dunant’s prior novels, and this new providing isn't any exception. . . . The contributors of this close-knit family members turn out to be dynamic characters, mistaken yet sympathetic, choked with worry and longing.”
—The Seattle Times
 
“Dazzling . . . a triumph on an epic scale . . . packed with wealthy element and page-turning drama.”
—BookPage
 
“The Machiavellian atmosphere—hedonism, lust, political intrigue—is magnetic. . . . Readers won’t wish the period of Borgia rule to end.”
—People (four stars)

By Frances Mayes

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER AND A undying vintage FROM the writer OF UNDER MAGNOLIA
 
Frances Mayes—widely released poet, connoisseur cook dinner, and go back and forth writer—opnes the door to a wondrous new global whilst she buys and restores an deserted villa within the fantastic Tuscan geographical region. In evocative language, she brings the reader alongside as she discovers the sweetness and straightforwardness of existence in Italy. Mayes additionally creates dozens of scrumptious seasonal recipes from her conventional kitchen and easy backyard, all of which she contains within the publication. Doing for Tuscany what M.F.K. Fisher and Peter Mayle did for Provence, Mayes writes concerning the tastes and pleasures of a international nation with gusto and keenness.

By Fodor's

Get encouraged and plan your subsequent journey with Fodor’s e-book trip advisor to Venice and northerly Italy.

Intelligent making plans: realize all the crucial, updated info you are expecting in a Fodor’s advisor, together with Fodor’s selection eating and accommodation, most sensible stories and sights, and recommended itineraries.

Easy Navigation for E-Readers: even if you’re examining this publication from begin to end or leaping from bankruptcy to bankruptcy as you advance your itinerary, Fodor’s makes it effortless to discover the data you would like with a unmarried contact. as well as a standard major desk of contents for the booklet, each one bankruptcy opens with its personal desk of contents, making it effortless to browse.

Full-Color images and Maps: It’s demanding to not fall in love with northern Italy as you turn via a brilliant full-color picture album. discover the format of urban facilities and well known neighborhoods with easy-to-read full-color maps. Plus, get an outline of Italian geography with the handy atlas on the finish of the ebook.

Bonus interpreting for the affection of Italy: as well as the imperative commute assistance you are expecting in a Fodor’s advisor, we’ve integrated 3 excerpts from remarkable books approximately Italy. Immerse your self in Italy with cultural insights from those top-selling authors:
Frances Mayes (EVERY DAY IN TUSCANY)
Beppe Severgnini (LA BELLA FIGURA)
Joseph Bastianich and David Lynch (VINO ITALIANO)

Explore Northern Italy: The wealthy north has Italy’s such a lot subtle tradition and its such a lot diversified panorama. Venice is an extraordinary jewel of a urban, and Milan and Turin are facilities of trade and elegance. alongside the country’s northern border, the mountain peaks of the Dolomites and Valle d’Aosta allure skiers in iciness and hikers in summer season, whereas the Lake District and the sea coast of the Ligurian Riviera are vintage summertime playgrounds.

By Paul Hofmann

OCR'd PDF

No other folks over see you later a historical past have proven a better knack for survival than the Italians. during this wryly affectionate booklet, Hofmann unearths his followed countrymen in all their excellent paradoxes, shooting their nationwide essence as no different publication has performed for the reason that Luigi Barzini's vintage, The Italians. The nationwide paintings of "arrangement"-- dodging taxes, double-dealing, operating purely as tough as one must-- is counteracted by means of Italian creative genius, gusto for all times, fierce individuality, deep kin bonds (as good as animosities), and a marvelously hedonistic sophistication.

By Peter Ackroyd

Peter Ackroyd at his so much magical and magisterial—a glittering, evocative, attention-grabbing, story-filled portrait of Venice, the last word urban.

The Venetians’ language and state of mind set them other than the remainder of Italy. they're an island humans, associated with the ocean and to the tides instead of the land. This lat­est paintings from the incomparable Peter Ackroyd, like a magic gondola, transports its readers to that sensual and wonderful urban.

His account embraces evidence and romance, conjuring up the ambience of the canals, bridges, and sunlit squares, the church buildings and the markets, the fairs and the plants. He leads us throughout the historical past of the town, from the 1st refugees arriving within the mists of the lagoon within the fourth century to the increase of an excellent mercantile kingdom and its buying and selling empire, the wars opposed to Napoleon, and the vacationer invasions of at the present time. every thing is the following: the retailers at the Rialto and the Jews within the ghetto; the glassblowers of Murano; the carnival mask and the unhappy colonies of lepers; the artists—Bellini, Titian, Tintoretto, Tiepolo. And the ever present undertone of Venice’s shadowy corners and lifeless ends, of prisons and punishment, wars and sieges, scandals and seductions.

Ackroyd’s Venice: natural urban is a learn of Venice a lot within the vein of his lauded London: The Biography. Like London, Venice is a fluid, writerly exploration equipped round a num­ber of topics. background and context are supplied in every one chap­ter, yet Ackroyd’s portrait of Venice is a very novelistic one, either appealing and rapturous. shall we haven't any higher guide—reading Venice: natural urban is, in itself, a wonderful trip to the final word city.

From the Hardcover edition.

By John Ciardi

Belonging within the corporation of the works of Homer and Virgil, The Inferno is a relocating human drama, a trip during the torment of Hell, an expression of the center a while, and a protest opposed to the ways that males have thwarted the divine plan.

Il quarantennale della morte di Pasolini cade in una fase del nostro Paese che in molti definiscono di “catastrofe culturale” (e politica, economica, umanitaria). Ponendosi in relazione con l’oggi, il libro propone una serie di testimonianze inedite sul Pasolini “politico”, spesso in contrasto con l. a. sinistra ufficiale. Il curatore Enzo De Camillis – autore del documentario Un intellettuale in borgata, dai cui materiali questo libro deriva – ripercorre le posizioni pasoliniane attraverso le voci di artisti ed esponenti politici: Otello Angeli, negli anni ’60 dirigente CGIL e segretario della sezione del PCI di Cinecittà; Goffredo Bettini, dirigente, nei ’70, dei Giovani Comunisti di Roma; Gianni Borgna, Stefano Rodotà, Vincenzo Vita; lo storico dell’arte Antonio Del Guercio; i registi ANAC Citto Maselli, Nino Russo, Ugo Gregoretti, Maurizio Ponzi; Renato Parascandolo, ex giornalista RAI; due testimoni dal set di Salò: Pupi Avati, lì sceneggiatore, e lo scenografo Osvaldo Desideri, lì arredatore. Infine i ricordi “monteverdini” di due “ragazzi di vita”, “er Pecetto” e “er Gallinella”, che raccontano il rapporto di Pasolini con l. a. borgata Donna Olimpia, le partite di calcio, i bagni nel Tevere, gli insegnamenti di quell’uomo che «spiegava cose che tu non avresti mai potuto pensare».

By Jean Castex

Covering all areas of Italy―from Turin's Palace of work in northern Italy to the Monreale Cathedral and Cloister in Sicily―and all sessions of Italian architecture―from the first-century Colosseum in Rome to the Casa Rustica residences in-built Milan within the 1930s―this quantity examines over 70 of Italy's most crucial architectural landmarks. Writing in an authoritative but enticing type, Jean Castex, professor of architectural heritage on the Versailles institution of structure, describes the positive aspects, capabilities, and ancient significance of every constitution. in addition to idetifying place, variety, architects, and sessions of preliminary development and significant renovations, the cross-referenced and illustrated entries additionally spotlight architectural and ancient phrases defined within the Glossay and finish with an invaluable directory of additional details assets. the amount additionally deals ready-reference lists of entries by means of place, architectural type, and period of time, in addition to a normal bibliography, an in depth topic index, and a entire introductory review of Italian architecture.

Entries conceal significant architectural constructions in addition to smaller websites, together with every thing from the well known dome of St. Peter's on the Vatican to the Fiat Lingotto Plant in Turin. excellent for school and highschool scholars, in addition to for basic readers, this entire examine the structure of Italy is an vital addition to each architectural reference collection.