To save the long-term future of their village, the people in the Italian village of Santa Vittoria decide to hide over a million bottles of their famous (and expensive) wine from the occupying Nazis.

    

    There she becomes acquainted with the Meryons - Daniel, the handsome head of the family to whom she's immediately drawn, his vicious wife, their daughter who was crippled by a tragic accident, and the great-aunt - an ancient woman of enormous wealth who is near death. The deeply troubled girl takes to Lavina who is employed as her companion at Winterwood, the family's lonely, isolated estate in England. There Lavinia is troubled by the wife's evil scheming, about a nephew who hints that he knows her secret, and after the death of the aunt - struggles to protect the now-wealthy young girl from her ruthless mother.

    The conflict began in October 1940, following an Italian ultimatum to the Greek Premier, Metaxus. The Italian forces who marched into the desolate mountain valleys of the Greek-Albanian border just as winter began were badly equipped and badly led, no match in that terrain for the Greek firepower and tactical expertise. The campaign lasted months, until Hitler's legions invaded the balkans from the north next Spring, to wrest a victory for which Mussolini vainly tried to take credit. The grandiose self-deception of Mussolini, imagining himself able to make war - even a minor war - independently of Hitler; the incompetence, short-sightedness and petty ambition of his generals; and the resignation and courage of the rank and file of the Italian army: all point to a theme of brutal contrast in the narrative. The author, a well-known Italian political journalist, makes use for the first time of all the documentary material on the campaign, including memoirs by the chief participants and letters and diaries of ordinary soldiers in the ranks; he has also drawn on Greek sources, including the private diary of Metaxus. His book is not just an objective indictment of Mussolini and many of his lieutenants, but is a valuable contribution to the history of the Second World War.

    The accompanying text by art historian Pierluigi De Vecchi provides a fresh, critical look at the life and work of an artist who was "touched by grace," according to Vasari, and who is still today considered one of the greatest painters of the Italian Renaissance.