In the fall of 1948, Ernest Hemingway made his first extended visit to Italy in thirty years. His reacquaintance with Venice, a city he loved, provided the inspiration for Across the River and into the Trees, the story of Richard Cantwell, a war-ravaged American colonel stationed in Italy at the close of the Second World War, and his love for a young Italian countess.
The latest installment in the critically acclaimed Stravaganza series begins with Matt, the new Stravagante. Despite having a beautiful and very smart girlfriend, Matt is insecure because he is dyslexic. He discovers that he is capable of traveling between two worlds when a leather-bound book transports him from his home in England to Talia, the parallel-world version of Italy, where he meets a fellow-Stravagante named Luciano-who is hiding from the powerful di Chimici family.
Italy, 1944: A squad of American soldiers on a dangerous secret mission is ambushed and slaughtered . . . and a fortune in gold vanishes. Hong Kong, 1959: An aging American colonel, haunted by his wartime past, is brutally murdered in a luxurious brothel. Atlanta, 1975: The last survivor of the fatal World War II ambush in Italy is executed at point blank range in a parking lot.
The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (Die Kultur der Renaissance in Italien) is an 1860 work on the Italian Renaissance by Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt. Together with his History of the Renaissance in Italy (Die Geschichte der Renaissance in Italien; 1867) it is counted among the classics of Renaissance historiography. English translation by S. G. C. Middlemore, in 2 vols., London, 1878.
