Italy Memoirs

Beginning with Rodrigo Borgia, Chamberlin charts this intelligent but ruthless man's passage to the top. He uncovers how, as Pope Alexander VI, he directed his family to carve out a Borgia kingdom in the heart of Italy. The chaotic intrigues, alliances, and wars that Cesare and Lucrezia became embroiled with are exposed in fascinating detail as competing dynasties and cities struggled for survival before the family's fortunes crumbled.

SETTLING DOWN is the fourth and final instalment of THE RELUCTANT EXPAT, Alan Laycock’s light-hearted account of his life in Spain. ***The first part of Alan's sequel, THE CONTENTED EXPAT, is now available.***

Bestselling Author – Embrace the Italian vibe! Watch 'You Want to Fa' l'italiano' and feel the magic of Italy in every beat! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpNv1PHlQxI&ab_channel=DavidandIvankaDiFelice On arriving in Italy, we made the same mistake other foreigners make: we compared how things were done in Canada with how things were done here. Although we admired the inimitable beauty of Italy, its infamous bureaucracy and other inconveniences annoyed us. The list of culture shocks was long. And, naturally, the way we did things back home was superior. I am not quite sure when it ...

When Pliny the Elder perished at Stabiae during the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79, he left behind an enormous compendium of knowledge, his 37-volume Natural History, and a teenaged nephew who revered him as a father. Grieving his loss, Pliny the Younger inherited the Elder's notebooks - filled with pearls of wisdom - and his legacy. At its heart, The Shadow of Vesuvius is a literary biography of the younger man, who would grow up to become a lawyer, senator, poet, collector of villas, and chronicler of the Roman Empire.

THE HERMIT AND THE HITCHHIKER: A SPANISH ENCOUNTER is the tale of two men whose fortuitous meeting in the hills of South-East Spain leads to an unlikely friendship which changes their lives forever. After overcoming the initial reticence caused by their disparate ages and backgrounds, their improbable alliance leads both men to learn from each other and reassess their respective goals, not least when Roy’s old flame, Alicia, returns to the area with her daughter Sara. Touching, humorous and informative, the story of Roy and Ryan’s relationship with each other and their female friends is...

The name Borgia is synonymous with the corruption, nepotism, and greed that were rife in Renaissance Italy. The powerful, voracious Rodrigo Borgia, better known to history as Pope Alexander VI, was the central figure of the dynasty. Two of his seven papal offspring also rose to power and fame. The Borgias were notorious for seizing power, wealth, land, and titles through bribery, marriage, and murder. The story of the family's dramatic rise from its Spanish roots to the highest position in Italian society is an absorbing tale.

Since childhood Helene Stapinski heard lurid tales about her great-great-grandmother, Vita. In Southern Italy she was a loose woman who had murdered someone. Immigrating to America with three children, she lost one along the way. Helene's youthful obsession with Vita deepened as she grew up, eventually propelling the journalist to Italy, where, with her own children in tow, she pursued the story, determined to set the record straight.

His name appears on street signs in cities across Italy, yet outside that country he is virtually unknown. These are the fascinating memoirs of a man who contributed significantly to the unification of Italy, as well as the liberal movements in Spain and Mexico, told in his own words. These memoirs are translated into English here for the first time. Giuseppe Avezzana began his military career at the age of fifteen, when he enlisted in Napoleon's Grande Armeé. His career went on to span several decades, four countries and two continents. Rising through the ranks from an isolated sentry on ...

Los cuervos del Vaticano revela una historia de mayordomos traidores, filtraciones de documentos, comisiones secretas de investigación, del servicio de espionaje y contraespionaje del Vaticano, de prelados que denuncian la corrupción y que son alejados de inmediato de San Pedro, lavado de dinero, altos miembros de la mafia siciliana, un complot para asesinar al papa, una adolescente desaparecida y supuestamente utilizada como esclava sexual, una guerra entre periodistas y directivos de la prensa católica, un presidente del IOR cesado y con miedo a ser asesinado.

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; nei vagabondaggi dell'esiliato che scopre l'incredibile varietà dell'Italia del Trecento, fra metropoli commerciali e corti cavalleresche.

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) was recognized in his lifetime as the greatest living artist, creator of a succession of masterpieces in sculpture, fresco painting, and architecture. In all his work, Michelangelo impressed his contemporaries as a forceful personality, a divine genius endowed with terribilita, or intense emotional power.

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.

Commissioned in 1750, the Palazzo Venier was planned as a testimony to the power and wealth of a great Venetian family, but the fortunes of the Venier family waned, and the project was left abandoned and unfinished. Yet in the early 20th century, it attracted three fascinating women: Luisa Casati, Doris Castlerosse and Peggy Guggenheim.

THE RELUCTANT EXPAT is Alan Laycock’s light-hearted account of his transition to life in a new country. Alan has no desire to move to Spain, but his sister Cathy and brother-in-law Bernie are going regardless, so he decides to tag along. Despite his initial pessimism, he soon sees that life in their new home has more to offer than he first suspected, and by befriending a pair of local oldies he finds surprising new opportunities opening up to him. A coin dealer by trade and an idler by nature, his new, dynamic attitude surprises Cathy, Bernie and, most of all, himself, as he gets to grips...

Valentino Rossi is an icon: the most successful and most loved motorcycle racer of all time, he has transcended MotoGP to become a symbol of courage, risk and daring. To race for 23 years at the very highest level of the world's most dangerous sport is unprecedented. But then, there has never been a motorcycle racer like Valentino Rossi. He is a modern-day gladiator, a man who still risks his life every time he throws a leg over a motorcycle.

NORTHWARD BOUND is the entertaining and enlightening account of one English couple’s relocation from the overdeveloped south of Spain to the lush green hills of Asturias. In PART TWO of Alison’s story the valiant couple go on living with Remedios while their new house is being refurbished by a singular builder and his motley crew. Hoping to move in by the end of the year, a stirring series of events – one of them a huge surprise – means that the process goes less smoothly than they’d anticipated.

We live in their buildings, work in their companies, shop in their stores, eat in their restaurants and elect politicians they fund. 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, a market-moving size in global finance and a reach that extends to 50 countries around the world. And yet, remarkably, few of us have ever heard of it.

William Shakespeare's gripping play showed Caesar's assassination to be an amateur and idealistic affair. The real killing, however, was a carefully planned paramilitary operation, a generals' plot put together by Caesar's disaffected officers and designed with precision. Brutus and Cassius were indeed key players, but they had the help of a third man - Decimus. He was the mole in Caesar's entourage, one of Caesar's leading generals, and a lifelong friend.

Hitler offers a deeply learned and radically revisionist biography, arguing that the dictator's main strategic enemy, from the start of his political career in the 1920s, was not communism or the Soviet Union, but capitalism and the United States. Whereas most historians have argued that Hitler underestimated the American threat, Simms shows that Hitler embarked on a preemptive war with the United States precisely because he considered it such a potent adversary.

Galileo Galilei began his career as a mathematician. Yet as fate would have it, he became far more than a numbers whiz. Here was a true Renaissance man; one who was greatly educated and a genuine lover of the arts. He was a fan of poets and a fine lute player. When in 1609 Galileo created his first telescope and turned his attention to the skies, everything changed.