Italy

Bloodlands is a new kind of European history, presenting the mass murders committed by the Nazi and Stalinist regimes as two aspects of a single history, in the time and place where they occurred: between Germany and Russia, when Hitler and Stalin both held power....

Historian Chris Wickham defies the conventional view of the Dark Ages in European history with a work of remarkable scope and rigorous yet accessible scholarship. The Inheritance of Rome presents a fresh understanding of the crucible in which Europe would ultimately be created....

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

In The Day of Battle, Atkinson follows the American and British armies as they invade Sicily in July 1943, attack Italy two months later, and then fight their way, mile by bloody mile, north toward Rome....

Against the background of an age that saw the rebirth of ancient and classical learning, Paul Strathern explores the intensely dramatic rise and fall of the Medici family....

This riveting audiobook narrated by Phyllida Nash traces the history of the city that led the West out of the ruins of the Roman Empire....

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

Each chapter paints a fascinating portrait of a single general, offering in-depth insight into his leadership skills and victories as well as each one's pioneering strategies....

An extraordinary chronicle of Venice, its people, and its grandeur Thomas Madden’s majestic, sprawling history of Venice is the first full portrait of the city in English in almost thirty years....

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....

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....

In the late summer of 1943, when Italy broke with the Germans and joined the Allies after suffering catastrophic military losses, an Italian Resistance was born....

The Renaissance in Florence conjures images of beautiful frescoes and elegant buildings - the handiwork of the city's artists and architects. But equally important were geniuses of a different sort: Florence's manuscript hunters, scribes, scholars, and booksellers....

This enthralling book charts the family's huge influence on the political, economic and cultural history of Florence. Beginning in the early 1430s with the rise of the dynasty....

Filled with colorful characters and history, Double Entry takes us from the ancient origins of accounting in Mesopotamia to the frontiers of modern finance....

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....

A groundbreaking major best seller in Italy, Gomorrah is Roberto Saviano's gripping nonfiction account of the decline of Naples under the rule of the Camorra....

"Sicily," said Goethe, "is the key to everything." It is the largest island in the Mediterranean, the stepping-stone between Europe and Africa, the link between the Latin West and the Greek East....

The Florentines presents a sweeping and magisterial 400-year history of both the city and the people who gave birth to the Renaissance....

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 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....

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....

Did Garibaldi do Italy a disservice when he helped its disparate parts achieve unity? Was the goal of political unification a mistake....

During Julius Caesar’s reign over Rome, his conquests took place against Germanic and Celtic people who opposed the Roman Empire. These battles were hard-fought and memorable, and Caesar took great effort to share the stories with the world by writing The Gallic Wars....

Alessandro Barbero segue Dante nella sua adolescenza di figlio d'un usuraio che sogna di appartenere al mondo dei nobili e dei letterati; nei corridoi oscuri della politica, dove gli ideali si infrangono davanti alla realtà meschina degli odi di partito e della corruzione dilagante...

From one of the foremost medievalists of our time, a groundbreaking work on history and memory that goes well beyond the life of this influential saint.

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.

From the beginning, Rome was a hotbed of power, overweening ambition, desire, political genius, and corruption. Hughes details the turbulent years that saw the formation of empire and the establishment of the sociopolitical system, along the way providing colorful portraits of all the major figures, both political and cultural. For almost a thousand years, Rome would remain the most politically important, richest, and largest city in the Western world. 

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?  

The Italian Wars refers to a period of prolonged conflict between 1494 and 1559 when the major European powers of the time fought for control over Italy. While it began with a French attempt to gain control over the territory of Naples, it soon expanded to a general struggle between the royal houses of Valois and Habsburg - specifically, Francis I of France and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. The Italian Wars represented a change in warfare tactics from the contract armies common in the Medieval period to full-time standing armies common in the modern era.