Europe Italy

Sticking out into the Mediterranean Sea, Italy has some of the nicest weather in Europe. It is famous for its art, architecture, and cuisine. Listeners will discover the physical geography of Italy through descriptions of the landscape, waters, and coasts. They will also learn about the cultural geography of Italy, hearing about Italian schools, businesses, and communities.

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. Four young Piedmontese women - Ada, Frida, Silvia and Bianca - living secretly in the mountains surrounding Turin, risked their lives to overthrow Italy’s authoritarian government. They were among the thousands of Italians who joined the Partisan effort to help the Allies liberate their country from the German invaders and their Fascist collaborators.

Quattromila anni di storia in quattrocento pagine, senza ridurli a un arido elenco di date e di nomi. Impossibile? Tutt'altro: in questa "Breve storia d'Italia" Alfio Caruso fonde documentazione e divulgazione, raccontando l'Italia attraverso i personaggi, le mode, i costumi, le invenzioni. I grandi eventi si intrecciano alle minuzie quotidiane, i grandi uomini emergono da piccoli episodi, senza tacere dei loro lati meno onorevoli: il ruolo fondamentale di Nerone per la diffusione del Cristianesimo; la sola volta in cui Leonardo e Michelangelo si sfiorarono.

Set in the court of Urbino in 1507, Castiglione’s The Book of the Courtier presents an invaluable look at court life and culture during the Renaissance. Over four nights of dialogue, the book explores the key question, ‘What should a courtier be like?’ and presents a deep and timeless discussion that is reminiscent of Plato’s Symposium and Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and invites comparisons with Machiavelli’s The Prince.

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. There is suffering and squalor: Criminal gangs are on the rise, along with typhus and black market commerce, and the female population is forced into part-time prostitution. But there is farce and humor, too, witnessed in the Roman uncle paid handsomely simply to appear at funerals.

Imagine living in Italy for one full year. This was always the dream and promise Ilene and Gary made to each other. This story is an invitation to witness the magic of Italy through the eyes of two new Italian citizens. Listen to their own authentic voices, in alternating chapter format, sharing their story, raw emotions, laughter, triumphs, challenges, and experiences in this intimate format.

Edda Mussolini was the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini’s oldest and favorite child. At 19, she was married to Count Galleazzo Ciano, Il Duce’s Minister for Foreign Affairs during the 1930s, the most turbulent decade in Italy’s fascist history. In the years preceding World War II, Edda ruled over Italy’s aristocratic families and the cultured and middle classes while selling Fascism on the international stage. How a young woman wielded such control is the heart of Moorehead’s fascinating history.

The very name Lucrezia Borgia conjures up everything that was sinister and corrupt about the Renaissance: incest, political assassination, papal sexual abuse, poisonous intrigue, unscrupulous power grabs. Yet, as best-selling biographer Sarah Bradford reveals in this breathtaking new portrait, the truth is far more fascinating than the myth.

In this masterful work, listeners will encounter: the poets Petrarch and Boccaccio, the fathers of the Renaissance; the paintings, sculptures, and architecture of Milan, Florence, and Venice; the life and accomplishments of Leonardo DaVinci; the Catholic church and the popes of Avignon and Rome; the politicians and philosophers of Italy, including the Borgia family, Julius II, and Machiavelli; the Italian Wars, the conflicts with France, and the country's decline.

The brilliance of the Renaissance laid the foundation of the modern world. Textbooks tell us that it came about as a result of a rediscovery of the ideas and ideals of classical Greece and Rome. But now bestselling historian Gavin Menzies makes the startling argument that in the year 1434, China - then the world's most technologically advanced civilization - provided the spark that set the European Renaissance ablaze. From that date onward, Europeans embraced Chinese ideas, discoveries, and inventions, all of which form the basis of Western civilization today.

At the end of the fourth century, as the power of Rome faded and Constantinople became the seat of empire, a new capital city was rising in the West. Here, in Ravenna on the coast of Italy, Arian Goths and Catholic Romans competed to produce an unrivaled concentration of buildings and astonishing mosaics. For three centuries, the city attracted scholars, lawyers, craftsmen, and religious luminaries, becoming a true cultural and political capital.

Meditations is former US President Bill Clinton's favorite book. This audio consists of a series of personal writings by Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor AD 161-180, setting forth his ideas on Stoic philosophy.

Having three generations of her family living under the same roof was once part of the Italian dream for Rosie. But when her party-loving, whiskey-drinking, poker-playing 85-year-old mother moves over from Ireland to Italy, Rosie’s longed for dolce vita in Umbria is anything but sweet.

From National Book Award finalist David I. Kertzer comes the gripping story of Pope Pius XI’s secret relations with Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. This groundbreaking work, based on seven years of research in the Vatican and Fascist archives, including reports from Mussolini’s spies inside the highest levels of the Church, will forever change our understanding of the Vatican’s role in the rise of Fascism in Europe.

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.

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. When the Pope handed Michelangelo control of the St. Peter’s project in 1546, it was a study in architectural mismanagement, plagued by flawed design and faulty engineering.

Leonardo da Vinci, Niccolò Machiavelli, and Cesare Borgia - three iconic figures whose intersecting lives provide the basis for this astonishing work of narrative history. They could not have been more different, and they would meet only for a short time in 1502, but the events that transpired when they did would significantly alter each man's perceptions - and the course of Western history.

This isn’t just a Puglia Travel Guide. It’s a better way to travel!Instead of just checking off tourist sites, immerse yourself in local rhythms, sacred traditions, seasonal festivals, and everyday rituals that define life in Italy’s most authentic region. With this book, you’ll experience Puglia through moments, not just monuments. With over 100 festivals woven into the seasons, this guide ensures that no matter when you travel, you’ll find yourself in the heart of a celebration. Planning your Italian dream vacation? Discover Puglia, Italy’s sun-drenched heel where azure waters...

In this glittering biography, Elizabeth Lev reexamines Caterina Sforza's extraordinary life and accomplishments. Raised in the court of Milan and wed at age ten to the pope’s corrupt nephew, Caterina was ensnared in Italy’s political intrigues early in life. After turbulent years in Rome’s papal court, she moved to the Romagnol province of Forlì. Following her husband’s assassination, she ruled Italy’s crossroads with iron will, martial strength, political savvy—and an icon’s fashion sense. In finally losing her lands to the Borgia family, she put up a resistance that inspired all of Europe.

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.