Italy

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....

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....

The brilliance of the Renaissance laid the foundation of the modern world....

Benito Mussolini was a figure that was both revered and dreaded. He climbed the ladder of power rapidly in Italian politics, and he was brought down just as fast....

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....

The world is enamored with Italy: its culture, art, food, and fashion, its beautiful landscapes, and famous cities-and, of course, its wine.

In the fifteenth century, even before the city states of the Apennine Peninsula began to coalesce into what would become, several centuries later, a nation, "Italy" exerted enormous influence over all of Europe and throughout the Mediterranean....

Tourists, armchair travelers, and historians will all delight in this fluid narrative that can be read straight through, dipped into over time, or used as a reference guide to each period in Sicily's fascinating tale....

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....

No city stirs the imagination more than Venice. From the richly ornamented palaces emerging from the waters of the Grand Canal to the dazzling sites of Piazza San Marco, visitors and residents alike sense they are entering, as fourteenth-century poet Petrarch remarked, “another world.”....

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

The ancient Romans have one of the richest collections of myths of all the early civilizations. In this book you can discover all the most important Roman gods, important Roman myths, the history of Rome, and much more....

As Rome swelled with tradespeople, artisans, slaves, and wealthy merchant families, its politicians struggled to maintain the fundamental democratic properties of the republican government....

Since its formation in 1861, Italy has struggled to develop an effective political system and a secure sense of national identity. Christopher Duggan's acclaimed introduction charts the country's history from the fall of the Roman Empire in the West to the present day....

Founded more than 150 years ago by shepherding families in the toe of Italy, the 'Ndrangheta is today the world's most powerful mafia, with a crushing presence in Southern Italy....

Can you imagine painting without Leonardo, opera without Verdi, fashion without Armani, food without the signature tastes of pasta, gelato, and pizza? The first universities, first banks, first public libraries? All Italian....

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....

Venetian gondola-maker Luca Vianello considers his whole life arranged. His father charted a course for his eldest son from the day he was born, and Luca is positioned to inherit....

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

Hardly anyone who was educated was unaware of at least some of the more famous stories of Roman myth and history as told by Titus Livius....

Conspiracy, intrigue and faction-fighting as the future of Europe hangs in the balance: Mary Hollingsworth tells the extraordinary story of the papal conclave in 1559 - the longest and bitterest of the 16th century....

Why is a region in northern Italy called Lombardy? It was named after the Germanic barbarians known as the Lombards. As one of several founding ethnic groups, they left their mark on the peninsula....

If you want to discover the captivating history of the Renaissance, then pay attention....

John Hooper's marvelously entertaining and perceptive new book is ideal for anyone seeking to understand contemporary Italy and the unique character of the Italians....

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....