Marco is young, handsome and well-educated. Not to mention he is one of the powerful Medici family’s favored circle.Even before her marriage with Marco is set, Simonetta is swept up into Lorenzo and Giuliano de’ Medici’s glittering circle of politicians, poets, artists, and philosophers. The men of Florence―most notably the rakish Giuliano de’ Medici―become enthralled with her beauty. That she is educated and an ardent reader of poetry makes her more desirable and fashionable still. But it is her acquaintance with a young painter, Sandro Botticelli, which strikes her heart most. Botticelli immediately invites Simonetta, newly proclaimed the most beautiful woman in Florence, to pose for him. As Simonetta learns to navigate her marriage, her place in Florentine society, and the politics of beauty and desire, she and Botticelli develop a passionate intimacy, one that leads to her immortalization in his masterpiece, The Birth of Venus.

    Yet, as bestselling biographer Sarah Bradford reveals in this breathtaking new portrait, the truth is far more fascinating than the myth. Neither a vicious monster nor a seductive pawn, Lucrezia Borgia was a shrewd, determined woman who used her beauty and intelligence to secure a key role in the political struggles of her day.Drawing from a trove of contemporary documents and fascinating firsthand accounts, Bradford brings to life the art, the pageantry, and the dangerous politics of the Renaissance world Lucrezia Borgia helped to create.

    An investigation ensues and as each of the victim's neighbors is questioned, the reader is offered an all-access pass into the most colorful neighborhood in contemporary Rome. Each character takes his or her turn center-stage, giving evidence, recounting his or her story the dramas of racial identity, the anxieties and misunderstandings born of a life spent on society's margins, the daily humiliations provoked by mainstream culture's fears and indifference, preconceptions and insensitivity. What emerges is a moving story that is common to us all, whether we live in Italy or Los Angeles. This novel is animated by a style that is as colorful as the neighborhood it describes and is characterized by seemingly effortless equipoise that borrows from the cinematic tradition of the Commedia all Italiana as exemplified by directors such as Federico Fellini. At the heart of this bittersweet comedy told with affection and sensitivity is a social reality that we often tend to ignore and an anthropological analysis, refreshing in its generosity, that cannot fail to fascinate.

    Their lives are shaped by hunger, theft, betrayal, and prostitution, and they celebrate their triumphs with brutal abandon and die bleak deaths. This harsh world is portrayed with an understanding that humanity and even humor can exist amidst a hard and amoral society. A novel that caused a scandal upon its first publication more than 50 years ago, this new translation eloquently captures the gritty Roman slang of the Italian original and tells a story that still resonates powerfully to this day.

    Well, that is what Rosie did.Buying the house was an accident. She only went out for bananas.Rosie embarks on renovating her 22 room ‘new’ home in Italy with a non-negotiable move-in date of Christmas Eve.Surrounded by a cast of interesting characters, the Irish woman learns the Italian way of life and house renovating in the country she wants to call home. But when the project manager goes AWOL, non-Italian speaking Rosie has no option but to take control with the help of a translation app.With no heating, windows disappearing, mystery holes in the garden, water flooding down the stairs, a pandemic destroyed business and with a move-in date that seems more laughable than doable, Rosie begins to question if she was crazy to follow through on her fabulous midlife crisis dream of renovating a villa in Italy.

    Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts - the books may have occasional errors that do not impede the reading experience. We believe this work is culturally important and have elected to bring the book back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.

    With stocks of wine and bread depleted, they pass the time squabbling over scraps, debating who will eat the other first. Spring brings a more sinister discovery that threatens to break Adelmo Farandola's already faltering grip on reality: a man's foot poking out of the receding snow.

    Executed in stunning watercolors and broken down into five chapters (set in Italy, Norway, Egypt, and Italy again), 5,000 Kilometers Per Second manages to refer to Piero and Lucia's actual love story only obliquely, focusing instead on its first stirrings and then episodes in their life during which they are separated--a narrative twist that makes it even more poignant and heart-wrenching. 5,000 Kilometers Per Second is another delicate graphic-novel masterpiece from Europe.

    But it wasn’t like that; and the clock has no hands, so I can’t turn them back.” [p.171]Alex Carlise has returned to a place he thought he’d never see again, outside of his dreams. As he walks the ochre-dusted road to the house in which he grew up, the memories of his young life in a small Italian town push all other thoughts out of his head: thoughts about the major exhibition of his artwork opening soon in London, thoughts of the myriad things he should be doing in preparation–everything subsides to make room for the warm flood of a time long past.When he opens the door to the now-deserted house, he is suddenly seven again. There is Jamie, his first friend, his best friend; Anna, his first love; and the delicious days they spent exploring the valley and swimming in the cerulean blue Mediterranean Sea. It all comes back to Alex in a way he can neither control nor discern. But the memories are insistent, demanding. Soon Alex loses entire hours to the past, overwhelmed by the haunting memories of a youth turned tragic. Alex remembers the day he, Jamie, and Anna went to their favorite place, an abandoned church far up in the hills. There they stumbled upon a man, injured and sick. From this discovery, a series of events tumbled forth that would change them all forever. Alex now realizes that he must confront the truth about himself, about the echoes of the past that still haunt him, and about the friends whose legacy has meant only devastation.Guy Burt’s vision of youth is piercingly accurate, and his sense of how time can play tricks on the mind is startling. Haunting, eerie, and remarkably assured, The Clock Without Hands will resonate with the child that hides inside your own memories.From the Hardcover edition.

    Immediately Heddi is transported back to her college days in that heartbreakingly beautiful city built on the ruins of a legendary empire set against the backdrop of a sleeping volcano. The narrow, winding streets of Naples’s Spanish Quarter still sparks the pain of longing and a desire to belong. It is the place she so wanted to call home despite being l’americano. But for Heddi’s tribe of university friends, Naples was the first taste of freedom and an escape from their familial obligations. For all of them Naples is a place that they’ll never forget: the setting of their unrestrained youth.When Heddi unexpectedly meets Pietro, a fellow student they are immediately drawn to one another and fall into a whirlwind romance. She is searching for the roots she never had, while he is trying to escape his. Naples, alive and fierce, and ultimately elusive, becomes a real university of life.In this poignant, atmosphericcoming of age tale of first love—of a place, of a person—languages and cultures collide while dreams soar and crash in spectacular ways.

    Worldly and ambitious, she has never envied her less attractive sister, the spirited but naive Beatrice, until, by a quirk of fate, Beatrice is betrothed to the future Duke of Milan. Although he is more than twice their age, openly lives with his mistress, and is reputedly trying to eliminate the current duke by nefarious means, Ludovico Sforza is Isabella's match in intellect and passion for all things of beauty. Only he would allow her to fulfill her destiny: to reign over one of the world's most powerful and enlightened realms and be immortalized in oil by the genius Leonardo da Vinci.Though Isabella weds the Marquis of Mantua, a man she has loved since childhood, Beatrice's fortunes rise effortlessly through her marriage to Ludovico. The two sisters compete for supremacy in the illustrious courts of Europe, and Isabella vows that she will not rest until she wrestles back her true fate and plays temptress to the sensuous Ludovico and muse to the great Leonardo. But when Ludovico's grand plan to control Europe begins to crumble, immortality through art becomes a luxury, and the two sisters must choose between familial loyalty and survival in the treacherous political climate.Leonardo's Swans is an evocation of the artist during his years in the glittering court of Milan, re-creating the thrilling moments when he conceived The Last Supper and the Mona Lisa. It portrays a genius ahead of his time who can rarely escape the demands of his noble patrons long enough to express his own artistic vision.

    Gerald's idyll is shattered by the arrival of Marta, on the run from a crime-riddled former soviet republic. A series of hilarious misunderstandings brings this odd couple into ever closer and more disastrous proximity.James Hamilton-Paterson's first novel, "Gerontius," won the Whitbread Award. He is an acclaimed author of nonfiction books, including "Seven-Tenths," "Three Miles Down," and "Playing with Water," He currently lives in Italy.

    When he meets another force of nature, Concetta, a penniless but indestructible farmworker, the stage is set for the creation of an exceptional family: generations of strong, complicated boys and, especially, girls. The battles among them are many as they live through historical upheaval and private passions. Their stories are told by Gioia, the last of the line, a woman of our times who fights tirelessly against convention. She is the product of a family of memorable women who know how to survive, and also how to make something fantastical and rich out of their lives: with their hands they create delicate and complex embroideries, while their minds embroider endless, elaborate stories. In this sweeping, unforgettable novel, Mariolina Venezia portrays five generations of the Falcone family. Through their complicated, funny, tragic, and astonishing stories, Venezia also recounts a century and a half of Italy’s tumultuous history. Been Here a Thousand Years is a testament to the Falcone family, and also to the vibrant, irrational, irresistible country that produced it.

    His most celebrated work, Six Characters in Search of an Author, embodies the Nobel Prize-winning playwright's innovations by presenting an open-ended drama on a stage without sets.First performed in 1923, this intellectual comedy introduces six individuals to a stage where a company of actors has assembled for a rehearsal. Claiming to be the incomplete, unused creations of an author's imagination, they demand lines for a story that will explain the details of their lives. In ensuing scenes, these "real-life characters," all professing to be part of an extended family, produce a drama of sorts — punctuated by disagreements, interruptions, and arguments. In the end they are dismissed by the irate manager, their dilemma unsolved and the "truth" a matter of individual viewpoints.A tour de force exploring the many faces of reality, this classic is now available in an inexpensive edition that will be welcomed by amateur theatrical groups as well as by students of drama.

    But nobody much wants Zen to succeed: not the local authorities, who view him as an interloper, and certainly not Miletti's children, who seem content to let the head of the family languish in the hands of his abductors -- if he's still alive.Was Miletti truly the victim of professionals?  Or might his kidnapper be someone closer to home: his preening son Daniele, with his million-lire wardrobe and his profitable drug business?  His daughter, Cinzia, whose vapid beauty conceals a devastating secret? The perverse Silvio, or the eldest son Pietro, the unscrupulous fixer who manipulates the plots of others for his own ends? As Zen tries to unravel this rat's nest of family intrigue and official complicity, Michael Dibdin gives us one of his most accomplished thrillers, a chilling masterpiece of police procedure and psychological suspense.