A marvellous biography of this clever, brilliant, opportunistic, amoral, inquisitive man - Damrosch's erudition serves his notorious subject very well.
When a young woman in Renaissance Italy is taken by her husband, the Duke of Ferrara, to a remote villa, she realises he intends to kill her... Richly told, by the author of Hamnet.
From the Alps to the Adriatic, through Ferrara, Mantova, Parma, Cremona, Pavia and Turin. Those who read Helena Attlee's recent Lev's Violin will know something of its historical use, but no... read more
The author went to Venice in 1957, aged 25, to have fun for a season among the rich and glam. Written with 67 years' hindsight, this memoir is a vivid evocation of a vanished era.
Eye-stretching and ebullient examples of Italian Brutalism - many very beautiful - from the publishing team that brought us Soviet Bus Stops a few years ago and other architectural wonders.
Wildly delicious, deliciously straightforward - a celebration of good ingredients, sluiced with new olive oil and nipped with a pinch of salt...The beautiful farmhouse of Arniano - Amber's f... read more
The Tyrrhenian Sea to be precise: AG drifts down the western coast of Tuscany, Lazio and Campania, and on past Naples and the Amalfi coast to northern Sicily, spilling capers, lemons, ricott... read more
This slim volume came out in the autumn and has been picked up so swiftly each time it arrives in the shop that we've hardly been able to keep it in stock...
This book was in our summer catalogue but we include it (exceptionally) in the present one too because it is outstanding. As in her 'Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire' (200... read more
One of the great patrons of the Renaissance, creator of perhaps the most remarkable library outside the Vatican, the Duke of Urbino was also the most successful and feared mercenary of the a... read more
Despite its often fraught encounters with democracy, science and secular culture, the Catholic Church's story in the modern era is one of remarkable survival.
A study of the way in which Vesuvius and the excavations in the Bay of Naples in 1738 and afterwards became a potent political and emotional vehicle for artists, intellectuals, Grand Tourist... read more
Between the Alps, the Appenines and the Tyrrhenian Sea grow bitter oranges, basil, olives... The Genoese are likely to ignite if anyone disagrees that their cuisine is the best in Italy.
With its grottoes, terraces and fountains, the Villa d'Este has arguably the finest garden of the Italian Renaissance. Stunning photographs of both villa and garden, with a text by the direc... read more