Best of
Italy

1988

The Last Leopard: A Life of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa


David Gilmour - 1988
    David Gilmour's biography of Giuseppe di Lampedusa unearths the life story of the creator of 'The Leopard', one of the great novels of the 20th century.

Pasta Fresca: An Exuberant Collection of Fresh, Vivid, and Simple Pasta Recipes


Viana La Place - 1988
    "Pasta Fresca" includes dishes with no-cook sauces, cheese/yogurt sauces, garden vegetables, seafood, and meat. Illustrations.

Collected Plays: Volume Two


Luigi Pirandello - 1988
    Six Characters in Search of an Author is Pirandello's best known work. The reality of the theater and the unreality of life cross over as the dramatist steps in and out of the framework of stage convention. In All for the Best the principle character discovers that his daughter is illegitimate and that he is the only one not to have known. Clothe the Naked is another study of the nature of reality and unreality in the loneliness of the principle character and the fictitious existence she creates for herself. Limes from Sicily is Pirandello's first produced play that movingly captures the nostalgia of Sicilians in exile.

The Church in Western Europe from the Tenth to the Early Twelfth Century


Gerd Tellenbach - 1988
    900 to c. 1125, which is considered both as a set of institutions and as a spiritual body. The first half concentrates on the structures of religious belief and practice in the period 900-1050; the second half concentrates on the revolutionary changes associated with the rise of the papacy to a new level of rulership. It shows how far one can talk of a reform movement, and how the idea and ideal of papal monarchy became both the prisoner and the leader of those who sought for a renewal of Christian life. Tellenbach's survey is the work of a scholar who has been working in the field for over sixty years. It is characterized by the freshness and maturity of its judgments, which cut through many fashionable theories. No other work on this topic offers comparable range, depth and authority.

Italian Country


Catherine Sabino - 1988
    More than 400 full-color photographs and 8 maps.

Frederick II: A Medieval Emperor


David Abulafia - 1988
    His wide cultural tastes, his apparent tolerance of Jews and Muslims, his defiance of the papacy, and his supposed aim of creating a new, secular world order make him a figure especially attractive to contemporary historians. But as David Abulafia shows in this powerfully written biography, Frederick was much less tolerant and far-sighted in his cultural, religious, and political ambitions than is generally thought. Here, Frederick is revealed as the thorough traditionalist he really was: a man who espoused the same principles of government as his twelfth-century predecessors, an ardent leader of the Crusades, and a king as willing to make a deal with Rome as any other ruler in medieval Europe. Frederick's realm was vast. Besides ruling the region of Europe that encompasses modern Germany, Czechoslovakia, Poland, eastern France, and northern Italy, he also inherited the Kingdom of Sicily and parts of the Mediterranean that include what are now Israel, Lebanon, Malta, and Cyprus. In addition, his Teutonic knights conquered the present-day Baltic States, and he even won influence along the coasts of Tunisia. Abulafia is the first to place Frederick in the wider historical context his enormous empire demands. Frederick's reign, Abulafia clearly shows, marked the climax of the power struggle between the medieval popes and the Holy Roman Emperors, and the book stresses Frederick's steadfast dedication to the task of preserving both dynasty and empire. Through the course of this rich, groundbreaking narrative, Frederick emerges as less of the innovator than he is usually portrayed. Rather than instituting a centralized autocracy, he was content to guarantee the continued existence of the customary style of government in each area he ruled: in Sicily he appeared a mighty despot, but in Germany he placed his trust in regional princes, and never dreamed of usurping their power. Abulafia shows that this pragmatism helped bring about the eventual transformation of medieval Europe into modern nation-states. The book also sheds new light on the aims of Frederick in Italy and the Near East, and concentrates as well on the last fifteen years of the Emperor's life, a period until now little understood. In addition, Abulfia has mined the papal registers in the Secret Archive of the Vatican to provide a new interpretation of Frederick's relations with the papacy. And his attention to Frederick's register of documents from 1239-40--a collection hitherto neglected--has yielded new insights into the cultural life of the German court. In the end, a fresh and fascinating picture develops of the most enigmatic of German rulers, a man whose accomplishments have been grossly distorted over the centuries.

The United States and Fascist Italy, 1922-1940


David F. Schmitz - 1988
    Schmitz argues that the U.S. desire for order, interest in Open Door trade, and concern about left-wing revolution led American policymakers to welcome Mussolini's coming to power and to support fascism in Italy for most of the interwar period.Originally published in 1988.A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.