Joan Foster is the bored wife of a myopic ban-the-bomber. She takes off overnight as Canada's new superpoet, pens lurid gothics on the sly, attracts a blackmailing reporter, skids cheerfully in and out of menacing plots, hair-raising traps, and passionate trysts, and lands dead and well in Terremoto, Italy. In this remarkable, poetic, and magical novel, Margaret Atwood proves yet again why she is considered to be one of the most important and accomplished writers of our time.
1434: The Year a Magnificent Chinese Fleet Sailed to Italy and Ignited the Renaissance
The New York Times bestselling author of 1421 offers another stunning reappraisal of history, presenting compelling new evidence that traces the roots of the European Renaissance to Chinese exploration in the fifteenth century
Lucrezia Borgia - Life, Love and Death in Renaissance Italy
Lucrezia Borgia is legendary as the archetypal villainess who carried out the poisoning plotted by her scheming father—Pope Alexander VI, aka Rodrigo Borgia—and by her ruthlessly ambitious brother Cesare. The facts of Lucrezia's case are sorted out from fiction by Bradford's humanizing biography, which presents Lucrezia as an intelligent noblewoman, powerless to defy her family's patriarchal order, yet an enlightened ruler in her own right as Duchess of Ferrara.
Italy: A Reference Guide From The Renaissance To The Present
This guide to Italy past and present uses narrative history, a chronology of major events, and a historical dictionary of people, places and ideas to give the reader an overview of Italian history and Italy's contributions to art, music and literature. The essays include discussions of contemporary Italian politics and Italy's relationship with the U.S. The appendices include maps and a list of Italy's rulers.
Covering all regions of Italy--from Turin's Palace of Labor in northern Italy to the Monreale Cathedral and Cloister in Sicily--and all periods of Italian architecture--from the first-century Colosseum in Rome to the Casa Rustica apartments built in Milan in the 1930s--this volume examines over 70 of Italy's most important architectural landmarks. Writing in an authoritative yet engaging style, Jean Castex, professor of architectural history at the Versailles School of Architecture, describes the features, functions, and historical importance of each structure.
