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Based on nearly 10 years of research in Italy, France, and Israel, including interviews with Gino Bartali's family, former teammates, a Holocaust survivor Bartali saved, and many others, Road to Valor is the first book ever written about the Italian cycling legend in English and the only book written in any language to fully explore the scope of Bartali's wartime work. An epic tale of courage, comeback, and redemption, it is the untold story of one of the greatest athletes of the 20th century.

Emigration of people from Sicily often overshadows the importance of the people who immigrated to the island through the centuries. These have included several who became Sicily's rulers, along with Jews, Ligurians, and Albanians. Greeks, Romans, Vandals, Goths, Byzantines, Muslims, Normans, Hohenstaufens, Spaniards, Bourbons, the Savoy Kingdom of Italy and the modern era have all held sway, and left lasting influences on the island's culture and architecture.

Tacitus, who condemns the depravity of these rulers, which he saw as proof of the corrupting force of absolute power, writes caustically of the brutal and lecherous Tiberius, the weak and cuckolded Claudius, and "the artist" Nero. In particular, his account of the bloody reigns of Tiberius and Nero brims with plots, murder, poisoning, suicide, uprisings, death, and destruction. The Annals also provides a vivid account of the violent suppression of the revolt led by Boudicca in Britain, the great fire of Rome under Nero, and the subsequent bloody persecution of the Christians.

The author of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil returns to give us an intimate look at the "magic, mystery, and decadence" of the city of Venice and its inhabitants.

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.

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.

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. Looking at the facts that lie behind and often belie the stereotypes, his revealing book sheds new light on many aspects of Italian life: football and Freemasonry, sex, symbolism, and the reason Italian has twelve words for a coat hanger yet none for a hangover.

Virtually everyone would agree that Leonardo da Vinci was the most important artist of the High Renaissance. It was Leonardo who singlehandedly created the defining features of Western art: a realism based on subtle shading; depth using atmospheric effects; and dramatic contrasts between light and dark.

In the aftermath of the First World War, the seeds of fascism were sown in Italy. While the country reeled in shock, a new movement emerged from the chaos: one that preached hatred for politicians and love for the fatherland; one that promised to build a ‘New Roman Empire’, and make Italy a great power again.

It is a city of seemingly irreconcilable opposites, simultaneously glorious and ghastly. And it is Ben Taylor’s remarkable ability to meld these contradictions into a whole that makes this the exciting and original book it is. He takes his stroll around the bay with the acute sensitivity of a lover, the good humor of a friend, and the wisdom of a seeker who has immersed himself in all aspects of this contrapuntal culture. His curiosity leads him to many byways, both real and metaphoric, and his passion for this ancient city and its people becomes, in his graceful prose and amusing anecdotes, irresistibly contagious.

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.

Venice, 1510. Maria Bartolini wants nothing more than to carry on her father's legacy as a master gilder. Instead, her father has sent her away from the only home she's ever known to train as an apprentice to Master Trevisan, a renowned painter. Maria arranges to leave the painter's workshop to return to her family workshop and to a secret lover waiting for her back home. But the encroaching Black Death foils her plans.... When the painter's servants uncover the real reason why Maria has been sent away to train with Master Trevisan, they threaten to reveal a secret.

Prosegue e termina, con questo quarto volume, il nostro viaggio nella storia dell’omicidio attraverso le età contemporanea, rinascimentale, medioevale e antica. In particolare “Nero come l’Abisso” tratterà del crimine violento durante il periodo delle grandi civiltà: assiri, egizi, greci, romani. Un lungo viaggio dalle origini dell’uomo fino alla caduta dell’Impero Romano, nel 476 dopo Cristo: la chiamano tutti l’età antica, dove affondano le radici della nostra cultura, delle nostre usanze e delle nostre paure più ancestrali.

The ingenious artist we know as Michelangelo lived during the Renaissance in Northern Italy, and you could say that he was indeed a Renaissance man - he was a painter, sculptor, poet, and engineer all rolled up into one. Even though it has been some 450 years since his passing, his legacy remains one of the strongest on record. If the burgeoning art student of today wishes to learn from the best, he takes his notes directly from Michelangelo.

In The Darkening Age, Catherine Nixey tells the little-known - and deeply shocking - story of how a militant religion deliberately tried to extinguish the teachings of the Classical world, ushering in unquestioning adherence to the 'one true faith'. The Roman Empire had been generous in embracing and absorbing new creeds. But with the coming of Christianity, everything changed. This new faith, despite preaching peace, was violent, ruthless and intolerant. And once it became the religion of empire, its zealous adherents set about the destruction of the old gods.

From the foundation of the Roman Monarchy to the whispered end of the Western Roman Empire, here’s your chance to learn all the key events of the intricate dance of power, passion, and prophecy that shaped the rise, decline, and fall of Rome. The Wolves of Mars is your key to over 1,200 years of Roman social, political, economic, military, and intellectual history.

Based on a wealth of documents long buried in the Vatican archives, Prisoner of the Vatican tells the story of the Church's secret attempt to block the unification of Italy and seize control, not in ancient times, but in the late 19th century. For more than 50 years, the pope was a self-imposed prisoner within the Vatican walls, planning to flee Italy, to return only as the restored ruler of Rome and the Papal States.

A history of the Renaissance told through the lives of its most influential patrons. From the late Middle Ages, the independent Italian city states were taken over by powerful families who installed themselves as dynastic rulers. Inspired by the humanists, the princes of 15th- and 16th-century Italy immersed themselves in the culture of antiquity, commissioning palaces, villas and churches inspired by the architecture of ancient Rome, and offering patronage to artists and writers.

El Imperio Romano ha estado en el centro de atención durante siglos. Ha sido estudiado, investigado y enseñado en escuelas de todo el mundo. Las invenciones, las palabras, el vocabulario y la filosofía se han derivado de esas importantes transiciones en la historia humana. Los romanos eran despiadados en algunos aspectos pero civilizados en otros. Eran personas peculiares que hacían las cosas de manera diferente a las que llamaban bárbaros. Su guerra, sus hábitos, su visión del futuro...todo esto convirtió a su imperio en lo que se convirtió.

On July 10, 1943, two great Allied armadas of over 2,000 ships readied to invade Sicily. This was Operation Husky, the first step toward winning a toehold in fascist-occupied Europe. Among the invaders were 20,000 Canadian troops serving in the First Canadian Infantry Division and First Canadian Tank Brigade - in their first combat experience. Over the next 28 days, the Allied troops carved a path through the rugged land, despite fierce German opposition.