Best of
Italy

1954

Italian Food


Elizabeth David - 1954
    For the foods of Italy, explained David, expanded far beyond minestrone and ravioli, to the complex traditions of Tuscany, Sicily, Lombardy, Umbria, and many other regions. David imparts her knowledge from her many years in Italy, exploring, researching, tasting and testing dishes. Her passion for real food, luscious, hearty, fresh, and totally authentic, will inspire anyone who wishes to recreate the abundant and highly unique regional dishes of Italy.

Don Camillo's Dilemma


Giovannino Guareschi - 1954
    And still the Good Lord strives to keep the peace in a war that keeps the whole world laughing.

Contempt


Alberto Moravia - 1954
    All the qualities for which Alberto Moravia is justly famous ~~ his cool clarity of expression, his exacting attention to psychological complexity and social pretension, his still-striking openness about sex—are evident in this story of a failing marriage. Contempt (which was to inspire Jean-Luc Godard’s no-less-celebrated film) is an unflinching examination of desperation and self-deception in the emotional vacuum of modern consumer society.

Roman Tales


Alberto Moravia - 1954
    They were first published as a collection in 1954. All of the stories are set in Rome or its surroundings after World War II, and focus on 'the common people of Rome' (Roma popolana). The characters in these stories tend to be the unemployed, ex-convicts, waiters, drivers, con artists, thieves and petty criminals, the average man (or woman) and the lower classes aspiring to climb out of poverty.All the stories are told in the first person with the narrator often unnamed, although details are usually furnished to provide a clue to the narrator's identity, such as their occupation, motivations, and social status. Moravia's Racconti Romani provide a snapshot on life in Rome after World War II, revealing much about the inhabitants of Rome in the early 1950s.

Piero Della Francesca or The Ineloquent in Art


Bernard Berenson - 1954
    

Venetian Rhapsody


Denise Robins - 1954
    For Katherine, it was a fairy tale come true - Venice is the most romantic city in the world. From a quiet English upbringing, Katherine suddenly finds herself plunged into a gay whirl of fashion, riches and aristocracy. Even more thrilling, Katherine was falling in love with Renato, the Marchesa's son. Violante, the beautiful millionairess, wanted Renato too - and she had a secret hold on him, for Renato's mother was gambling the family fortune away. If only Katherine could show him she had something more precious than wealth...

Who Wanders Alone


Peter Pinney - 1954
    Why Not? It was just as likely to begin at Alice Springs and end at Toledo or Saskatchewan. For this most eclectic of travellers pleases himself.What he lacks in money, baggage and correct visas he makes up for in inventiveness and enterprise. His capacity for 'adapting' his credentials is seemingly boundless, and he presents himself now as a student of folk-lore, ow as an ornithologist or pilgrim.

Cavour and Garibaldi 1860: A Study in Political Conflict


Denis Mack Smith - 1954
    Devoted to seven crucial months in 1860, the work examines in detail the sequence of events between the Sicilian rebellion in April, and the absorption of all the south into the Italian kingdom of Victor Emmanuel in November. It shows, in the contrasting priorities of the two great leaders, the creative tensions that underlay the movement for Italian unification. Against Cavour's desire to extend to the rest of the peninsula the benefits of Piedmontese liberalism, the author juxtaposes Garibaldi's dream of a united Italy, achieved if necessary by force. The diplomat and political strategist is compared with the soldier and popular hero, and in the comparison it is Garibaldi who emerges as the realist, and Cavour as the inspired but dogmatic muddler.