He explains how the mafia began, how it responds to threats and challenges, and introduces us to the real-life characters that inspired the American imagination for generations, making the mafia an international, larger than life cultural phenomenon. Dickie's dazzling cast of characters includes Antonio Giammona, the first "boss of bosses''; New York cop Joe Petrosino, who underestimated the Sicilian mafia and paid for it with his life; and Bernard "the Tractor" Provenzano, the current boss of bosses who has been hiding in Sicily since 1963.

    A simple seafood antipasto, a rich polenta with wild mushrooms or strawberries drizzled with balsamic, The Food of Italy provides a mouthwatering taste of a country that loves its food with a passion.

    They survive in an enchanting urban tableau of classicism and modern Italian culture. Here are all of Rome's most famous tourist attractions -- the Coliseum, St. Peter's Square, the Trevi Fountain, the Spanish Steps -- represented in dozens of photographs, old and new, that bring the great city to life.

    Who hasn't dreamt of being whisked away to a sweet little Italian town buried deep in the countryside? The small towns sprinkled throughout this expansive book are not only rich with beauty but also saturated with as much historical and cultural importance as their sister cities. The fact that they are "off the beaten path"-though sometimes extraordinarily famous for their art, food, and wine, or simply their setting-makes them rare gems even more desirable to see. The 101 towns featured represent the twenty diverse regions of Italy and their varied landscapes, architecture, and local specialties. Practical sidebars introduce the reader to traditional artisans as well as to the best place to buy Parmigiano Reggiano or the greatest terrace to take in a Tuscan sunset. Art and architecture are also amply covered, from the history of L'Aquila's ninety-nine fountains to the most elaborate of baroque churches. You will be amazed to see how much Italy has to offer beyond the well-trod paths of Venice, Florence, and Rome: from Asolo to Vicenza, flea markets to fish markets, horse races to open-air concerts, this book promises 101 great reasons to go back to Italy over and over.

    Meticulously collated into one unique volume are- every feature, interview, review of Argento's work- new material and never-before-published facts and secrets- exclusive Argento interviews- rare stills, posters and candid behind-the-scenes photos from private collections- full-length interviews with 28 collaborators, including George Romero, Max Von Sydow and Julian Sands

    The greatest of all the bandits was Sir John Hawkwood, an English expatriate and military genius who formed his own army, cleverly pitted ancient rivals against one another, held the Pope for ransom, and set blood running in the streets.In this gripping biography of the charismatic Hawkwood, Frances Stonor Saunders illuminates the fourteenth century as a time of plague, political schism, and religious mania offset by a gargantuan appetite for spectacle and luxury. Dazzling and addictively readable, The Devil's Broker is a riveting account of the fortunes gained and lost in a tumultuous time.

    Each book offers an insider's culinary view, with authentic recipes, beautiful photos and in-depth stories to bring to life the foods and flavours of each city.

    Because it focuses solely on the practical information, the Instructions contains many extra, more specific details the other guides simply don't have the room to include, and therefore makes them much more accessible. No matter what your destinations or travel plans, you'll find all the critical info you need.

    The awnings are rolled up. Other tourists are gone. Cold damp weather takes him back to the 1950s & earlier--a golden, intensely personal age of tourism. Decades ago, He voyaged from N. Africa to Italy, Yugoslavia & Greece, enjoying the radical freedom of youth, unaccountable to time because there was always time to make up for mistakes. He recalls the journey less to look inward into his own past than to look outward in order to dissect the process of learning thru travel, in which a succession of new landscapes can lead to books & artwork never before encountered. He 1st imagines Tunis as the glow of gypsum lamps shimmering against lime-washed mosques; the city he actually discovers is even more intoxicating. He goes to the ramparts of a Turkish kasbah where Carthaginian, Roman & Byzantine forts once stood: "I could see deep into Algeria over a ribwork of hills so gaunt it seemed the wind had torn the flesh off them." In these surroundings he discovers Augustine; the courtyards of Tunis lead him to the historical writings of Ibn Khaldun. He goes to the 5th-century Greek temple at Segesta & reflects on the failed Athenian invasion of Sicily. At Hadrian's villa, "Shattered domes revealed clouds moving overhead in countless visions of eternity. It was a place made for silence & for contemplation, where you wanted a book handy. Everycorner was a cloister. No view was panoramic: each seemed deliberately composed." His bus, train & nighttime boat rides, his long walks to archeological sites lead him to subjects as varied as the Berber threat to Carthage; the Roman army's hunt for the warlord Jugurtha; the legacy of Byzantine art; the medieval Greek philosopher Georgios Gemistos Plethon, who helped kindle the Italian Renaissance; 20th-century British literary writing about Greece; & the links between Rodin & the Croatian sculptor Ivan Mestrovic. Within these pages are smells, tastes & the profundity of chance encounters. Mediterranean Winter begins in Rodin's sculpture garden in Paris, passes thru gritty streets of Marseilles, ends with a moving epiphany about Greece as the world prepares for the 2004 Summer Olympics. Mediterranean Winter is the story of an education, filled with memories & history, not the author's alone, but humanity's as well.

    This intellectual history of Italian Fascism--the product of four decades of work by one of the leading experts on the subject in the English-speaking world--provides an alternative account. A. James Gregor argues that Italian Fascism may have been a flawed system of belief, but it was neither more nor less irrational than other revolutionary ideologies of the twentieth century. Gregor makes this case by presenting for the first time a chronological account of the major intellectual figures of Italian Fascism, tracing how the movement's ideas evolved in response to social and political developments inside and outside of Italy.Gregor follows Fascist thought from its beginnings in socialist ideology about the time of the First World War--when Mussolini himself was a leader of revolutionary socialism--through its evolution into a separate body of thought and to its destruction in the Second World War. Along the way, Gregor offers extended accounts of some of Italian Fascism's major thinkers, including Sergio Panunzio and Ugo Spirito, Alfredo Rocco (Mussolini's Minister of Justice), and Julius Evola, a bizarre and sinister figure who has inspired much contemporary neofascism.Gregor's account reveals the flaws and tensions that dogged Fascist thought from the beginning, but shows that if we want to come to grips with one of the most important political movements of the twentieth century, we nevertheless need to understand that Fascism had serious intellectual as well as visceral roots.

    Authors Julian Kliemann and Michael Rohlmann pay equal attention to religious frescoes, which in this period extended and enriched a venerable tradition, and secular imagery. During the cinquecento in Italy hardly a single opulent residence, villa, or palace belonging to a cardinal or aristocrat was not decorated in some fashion with mural painting, which developed in an unprecedented variety of forms.

    Pirandello's challenge to stage representation was taken up by leading directors and changed theater's perception of itself. Jennifer Lorch examines the play's impact through close analysis of individual productions in the context of theater history and practice. Her book includes a chronology of the most important productions, a bibliography and illustrations from major productions.

    This resident of the world's most romantic city is the perfect guide to its streets, monuments, gardens and delightfully hidden corners.

    It pays special attention to those areas of vocabulary and grammar which cause the most difficulty to English-speakers, and consideration is given throughout to questions of style and register. The text will be an essential reference for learners seeking access to the finer nuances of the Italian language.

    

    Nestled between the Adriatic Sea and the Apennine Mountains, Abruzzo is one of Italy's most striking regions, where the tastes of the earth and sea create a cuisine of vibrant flavors.Author and teacher Anna Teresa Callen grew up in Abruzzo and understands its regional specialties. Here is simple cooking at its best, with flavors kept fresh and clean. The robust tastes will linger, continuing to lure you into the kitchen to bring the joy and abundance of Italy's pastoral land to your own table.The book features more than 350 recipes such as Cardoon Soup from Anna Teresa's grandmother, the savory pie Fiadone Villese traditionally served at Easter, and the dessert La Cicerchiata from Italy's Jewish heritage. Callen's experience as a cooking teacher means the recipes are expertly written to ensure the best results every time.Framing the tempting recipes are the author's recollections of her bucolic girlhood-fishing with her father in the Adriatic, hunting for mushrooms in the forests, and rolling out pasta by hand with her mother-immersing you in the patterns of daily life in Abruzzo.

    Now I would like to take one of these women back to my house in California to show her how Bramasole traveled to America and took root, how the doors there are open to the breeze from San Pablo bay and to the distant view of Mount Tamalpais, how the table has expanded and the garden has burgeoned…The “bard of Tuscany” (New York Times) now offers a lavishly illustrated book for everyone who dreams of integrating the Tuscan lifestyle—from home decoration and cooking, to eating and drinking, to gardening, socializing, and celebrating—into their own lives. When Frances Mayes fell in love with Tuscany and Bramasole, millions of readers basked in the experience through her three bestselling memoirs. Now Frances and her husband, In Tuscany coauthor Edward, share the essence of Tuscan life as they have lived it, with specific ideas and inspiration for readers stateside to bring the beauty and spirit of Tuscany into their own home decor, meals, gardens, entertaining and, most important, outlook on life. In her inimitable warm and evocative tone, Frances helps readers develop an eye for authentic Tuscan style, with advice on how to:• Choose a Tuscan color palette for the home, from earthy apricot tones to invigorating shades of antique blue.• Personalize a room with fanciful door frames, unique painted furniture, and fresco murals.• Cultivate a Tuscan garden, adding fountains, vine-covered pergolas, and terra-cotta urns among the herbs and flowers • Select the best Italian vino. (Frances describes lunches at regional vineyards and imparts tips for pairing food and wine.)• Create an atmosphere of irresistible, anytime hospitality—a casa aperta (open home).• Make primo finds at local antiques markets. (And to help truly bring Tuscany home, shipping advice and market days for several Tuscan towns are included.)• Set an imaginative Tuscan table using majolica and vintage linens.• Enjoy the abundant flavors and easy simplicity of the Tuscan kitchen, with details on everything from olive oil and vino santo to pici and gnocchi, plus special homegrown menus and recipes.• Make the most of a trip to Tuscany, visiting Frances’s favorite hill towns, restaurants, small museums, and other soothing places. With more than 100 photos by acclaimed photographer Steven Rothfeld (including several of the Mayes’s California home and its Tuscan accents), twenty-five all-new recipes, and lists of resources for travelers and shoppers, Bringing Tuscany Home is a treasure trove of practical advice and memorable images.

    Lasting for about 300 years, the Renaissance saw notables such as Michelangelo, Dante, Cervantes and Arasmus reshape Europe.

    The survival of Malta against determined Axis assaults enabled the Allies to cripple supplies to Rommel's Afrika Korps, while building up their own land, air and sea forces. The entry of America to the war in December 1941 had allowed the allies to co-ordinate a grand strategy for the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern theatre. In October 1942, after careful preparation and a massive artillery bombardment, General Montgomery launched the Eighth Army against the Afrika Korps in the Battle of El Alamein, while in November, 'Operation Torch' the Anglo-American amphibious landings in French -ruled North Africa, scored an almost bloodless success and proved a dry run for D-Day in 1944. Squeezed between the Allied nutcrackers to the west and east, the Germans offered stubborn resistance in the Tunisia campaign of 1943, at the battles of Kasserine Pass and the Mareth Line, but after suffering severe casualties, the Allies broke through and the Axis forces in North Africa surrendered in May 1943. The text is supported by 12 appendices, 40 maps and diagrams and 44 photographs.

    The Norman Conquest of 1061 finally ousted the Muslims from the Island. Organised into three administrative valla – Val di Mazara, Val di Noto, Val Demone – Islamic Sicily produced singularly imaginative crafts and many religious and civic buildings, resurrecting some Byzantine canons, at times still heavily tainted with a late Antique resonance. The Norman monarchy knew how to incorporate, in an innovative and quite manifest way, the contributions of Islamic art.A myriad of monuments attributed to Roger II and William II were enhanced with these elaborate symbioses. The beauty of these sometimes leave us short of adequate words to describe the magnificent palaces and pleasure houses, the luxuriant gardens, and the refined marbles and glowing mosaics produced at this time when Norman kings lived in these surroundings as emirates. Along with the Conca d'Oro, Palermo became the epicentre of the dissemination of Islamic culture on the Island and offers an eloquent introduction to all the Islamic styles of this period in its ecclesiastical and palatial buildings. The admiration felt by the Norman rulers for the masters of the past is manifest in some splendid monuments such as the Tower (Burj) of Alfaina, the Palaces of Maredolce and of Uscibene, and, in particular, in the two Pavilions of Zisa and Cuba. In the province of Agrigento, several remnants of the Arab era have been preserved in the urban fabric, the burjs and the ribats. On the northern coast and in the mountainous regions of the Nebrodi (Vicari, Altavilla Milicia, Caccamo, Campofelice di Roccella, Cefalù), ruins of fortresses and castles are further evidence of this unique relationship. The Arab-Norman synthesis displayed a powerful originality born out of three centuries (XII-XIV) of the successful integration of motifs, typologies, techniques and infrastructures.

    Leach contends that the painted images reflect the codes of communication embedded in upper class life, such as the theatricality expected of those leading public lives, the self-conscious assimilation of Hellenistic culture among aristocrats, and their ambivalent attitudes towards luxury.

    Brian Campbell has selected and translated a wide range of pieces from the ancient military writers who tell us about the technical aspects of military practice and the management of armies.The pieces cover a fascinating range of topics - battle formations and manoeuvres, different types of troops, the art of generalship, methods for conducting and resisting a siege, the construction of artillery and fortifications, and every kind of ploy used by generals to defeat their opponents.Each piece is annotated with further explanation and context, making this an essential resource for everyone studying the army and warfare in the classical age.

    

    He challenges scholarship that overemphasizes the secular nature of Italian city-states by showing the extent to which developments in ecclesiastical institutions provided a model for the formation of civic institutions and defined a commune's political and religious culture. Following the collapse of Carolingian authority in the tenth century, Italy experienced a period of political chaos. Rural lords, unrestrained by central authority, fought to dominate the countryside. Bishoprics, by virtue of their temporal and spiritual authority over dioceses, emerged in the midst of this disorder as the most effective institutions for rebuilding political authority at the local level. The Orvietan bishopric formed the center of an urban coalition attempting to conquer and pacify their contado, or surrounding countryside. Orvieto's bishopric assisted the early city-state in administering its territory by developing innovative methods of written administration and record keeping. As the center of a wide range of religious interests, the bishopric was often caught between competing political and religious actors who leveraged their interests through ecclesiastical institutions and resources. This interaction had a profound effect on the city's political and religious culture. As Orvietans struggled to define the norms that would govern their society, they had to adapt their quest for political power and autonomy to their religious values. David Foote's deeply researched new book illuminates the process of state building in its early stages and the formation of political and religious culture in Europe during the High Middle Ages.

    Graphic violence. Lies, revenge, and murder. Before there was digital cable or reality television, there was Renaissance Italy and the courts in which Italian magistrates meted out justice to the vicious and the villainous, the scabrous and the scandalous. Love and Death in Renaissance Italy retells six piquant episodes from the Italian court just after 1550, as the Renaissance gave way to an era of Catholic reformation. Each of the chapters in this history chronicles a domestic drama around which the lives of ordinary Romans are suddenly and violently altered. You might read the gruesome murder that opens the book—when an Italian noble takes revenge on his wife and her bastard lover as he catches them in delicto flagrante—as straight from the pages of Boccaccio. But this tale, like the other stories Cohen recalls here, is true, and its recounting in this scintillating work is based on assiduous research in court proceedings kept in the state archives in Rome.Love and Death in Renaissance Italy contains stories of a forbidden love for an orphan nun, of brothers who cruelly exact a will from their dying teenage sister, and of a malicious papal prosecutor who not only rapes a band of sisters, but turns their shambling father into a pimp! Cohen retells each cruel episode with a blend of sly wit and warm sympathy and then wraps his tales in ruminations on their lessons, both for the history of their own time and for historians writing today. What results is a book at once poignant and painfully human as well as deliciously entertaining.

    This is especially true in Italy today, where you can find hundreds of bean recipes from nearly every region and where, for most families, eating beans is as fundamental as eating pasta. In Fagioli, the co-author of the best-selling cookbook Risotto celebrates the bean cuisine of Italy in all its splendid variety and versatility.Here you will find: - Bean Basics-everything you need to know to cook and enjoy beans, including a guide to the most common beans in Italy and their American counterparts- Ingredient Guide-information on the special Italian or hard-to-find ingredients, what they are, and how you can purchase them through mail-order and online resources--124 authentic dishes-both traditional and new-providing flavorful and creative ways to prepare beans: in antipasti and salads; in soups; with grains including polenta, barley, and faro; with pasta; and in hearty entrees prepared with meats, including sausages, game, beef, lamb, and pork.

    This volume provides an intimate look at how Italians cook, eat, and think about food today. It describes the cornucopia of foodstuffs and classic ingredients. An overview of the typical daily routine of meals and snacks gives a good feel for the everyday life. The changing roles of women are explored with a discussion of the inroads that convenience foods are making. In addition, the current concerns about the food supply, the benefits of the Mediterranean diet, and the slow food movement are tied in to the debates on these issues in the United States.Food is one of the main reasons why many Americans travel to Italy. Yet, the fascination with Italian cuisine is not all about health or taste. There is much more to it. Italian food is perceived and portrayed in the media as representing a whole lifestyle: Italians live la dolce vita, leisurely eating and drinking with friends and families, families are still important, and communities are close knit. The reality of Italian society is more complex, and this volume offers a balanced view of Italian culture and identity through its foodways.