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In the early morning of 6 May, 1527, the 20,000 starving, unpaid troops of Emperor Charles V began their assault on the great walls of Rome. After only a few hours they had overcome the barricades; the city into which they streamed was now in their grip. This uncontrollable force of German landsknechts, Spanish soldiers, and Italian mercenaries showed no mercy as they plundered, raped, and slayed their way through the holy city.

Beginning with the often violent circumstances of Dante's life, the book examines his successive works as testimony to the course of his passionate humanity: his lyric poetry through to the Vita nova as the great work of his first period; the Convivio, De vulgari eloquentia and the poems of his early years in exile; and the Monarchia and the Commedia as the product of his maturity.

Some 250 years after its first publication, Gibbon's Decline and Fall is still regarded as one of the greatest histories in Western literature. In Volume III (XXVII-XXXVI), Gibbon charts the fall of the Western empire. Starting with the reign of Emperor Gratian (d. 383) his survey moves to political and religious issues in the East and West before covering the increasing military power of the Barbarians.

Writer, activist and journalist Joan Smith has worked for years to raise awareness of violence against women and girls, and has been instrumental in bringing the innate misogyny of the police to public attention. Unfortunately, She Was a Nymphomaniac reinterprets the bloody, violent story of twenty-three women closely associated with the Julio-Claudian emperors of Rome. Fewer than half a dozen of them can be said with any confidence to have died of natural causes.

Surprisingly neglected in accounts of Allied wartime triumphs, in 1941 British and Commonwealth forces completed a stunning and important victory in East Africa against an overwhelmingly superior Italian opponent. A hastily formed British-led force, never larger than 70,000 strong, advanced along two fronts to defeat nearly 300,000 Italian and colonial troops.

From a best-selling author with unprecedented access to Pope Francis, an investigative look at the recent financial scandals at the highest levels of the Vatican. A veritable war is waging in the church: On one side there is Pope Francis' strong message for one church of the poor and all; on the other there is the old Curia, with its endless enemies, and the old and new lobbies struggling to preserve their not-so-Christian privileges.

The Sicilian mafia, known as Cosa Nostra, is far from being Italy's only dangerous criminal fraternity. The country hosts two other major mafias: the Camorra from Naples; and, from the poor and isolated region of Calabria, the mysterious 'Ndrangheta, which has now risen to become the most powerful mob group active today. Blood Brotherhoods is an audiobook of breathtaking ambition, tracing for the first time the interlocking story of all three mafias from their origins to the present day.

The stepping stone between Europe and Africa, the gateway between the East and the West, at once a stronghold, clearinghouse and observation post, Sicily has been invaded and fought over by Phoenicians and Greeks, Carthaginians and Romans, Goths and Byzantines, Arabs and Normans, Germans, Spaniards and the French for thousands of years. It has belonged to them all - and yet has properly been part of none.

What do you know about the emperors of Rome? Rome had good and bad emperors, selfish and selfless ones. Some were wise, others were foolish. And each left their legacy and their imprint on historical concepts of the Roman empire itself. In this book, we will explore the details of a number of these emperors, especially some of the best-known ones that have been hand-picked by the editors of this book.

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.

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.

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. Mussolini wished to stir up a united front of nationalism within his people. But, in the end, the only thing he united was their hatred and contempt for him as a despotic leader. There were several twists and turns in the life of Benito Mussolini, and this book will take you through them all. Follow his astonishing rise and his dramatic fall.

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

Members of the cosmopolitan, cultural aristocracy of Florence at the beginning of the 20th century, the Rosselli family, led by their fierce matriarch, Amelia, were vocal antifascists. As populist right-wing nationalism swept across Europe after World War I and Italy's prime minister, Benito Mussolini, began consolidating his power, Amelia's sons, Carlo and Nello, led the opposition, taking a public stand against Il Duce that few others in their elite class dared risk.

The year 1815 marked the beginning of a time of repression in Europe. Napoleon Bonaparte had been defeated at Waterloo and sent to the remote South Atlantic island of Saint Helena, the torrent of blood unleashed by the French Revolution had finally run dry, and the dispossessed princes were returning to their thrones. Bourbon King Louis XVIII returned to Paris, King Ferdinand VII was restored in Madrid, and the numerous petty princes of Germany and Italy took back power in their localities.

Roma tenía buenos y malos emperadores, egoístas y desinteresados. Algunos eran sabios, otros eran tontos. Y cada uno dejó su legado y su impronta en los conceptos históricos del propio imperio romano. En este libro, exploraremos los detalles de varios de estos emperadores, especialmente algunos de los más conocidos que han sido cuidadosamente seleccionados por los editores de este libro.

Fourteenth-century Italy was chaotic: mercenaries swarmed across the land as competing city-states attempted to vie with each other for power, while pestilence and famine decimated populations. Into this cauldron was born Giangalezzo Visconti, a man who perfectly exemplified all the contradictions of his age. E. R. Chamberlin's The Count of Virtue is a remarkable study of the life and times of Giangaleazzo Visconti that provides fascinating insight into the political, social and cultural world of fourteenth-century Italy.

Mussolini has rarely been taken seriously as a totalitarian dictator; Hitler and Stalin have always cast too long a shadow. But what was a negative judgement on the Duce, considered innocuous and ineffective, has begun to work to his advantage. As has occurred with many other European dictators, present-day popular memory of Mussolini is increasingly indulgent; in Italy and elsewhere he is remembered as a strong, decisive leader. Mussolini in Myth and Memory argues against this rehabilitation.

Naples: The History and Legacy of the Prominent Italian City-State from Antiquity to Today dives into the city's origin story, how it became one of the most important places in Europe, and its winding history. You will learn about Naples like never before.

Many men killed Julius Caesar. Only one man was determined to kill the killers. From the spring of 44 BC through one of the most dramatic and influential periods in history, Caesar's adopted son, Octavian, the future Emperor Augustus, exacted vengeance on the assassins of the Ides of March, not only on Brutus and Cassius, immortalized by Shakespeare, but all the others too, each with his own individual story. The last assassin left alive was one of the lesser-known: Cassius Parmensis was a poet and sailor who chose every side in the dying Republic's civil wars except the winning one.