Italy Memoirs

The complete history of the legendary Venice landmark where Hemingway, Welles, and others were regulars. A meeting place for writers, artists, models, and the stars of stage, screen, and corporate boardrooms, a luxurious restaurant whose fabulous concoctions and timeless decor have often been imitated but never matched, Harry’s Bar in Venice has remained one of the world’s most renowned watering holes for more than 60 years.

After 64 years, Mezzabotte Coletta, a retired truck driver for a Toronto macaroni factory, is retuning to his native Italia. In his native village of Supino is a rundown villa bought sight unseen by Mezzabotte Coletta 's daughter Maria - an olive branch after years of family struggle. While she and her husband breathe in the chatter of local tradesmen, the fragrant offerings of well-wishing neighbors, and the aroma of fine wine, her father awaits in Canada, anticipating the day he will again touch Italian soil.

Based on nearly 10 years of research in Italy, France, and Israel, including interviews with Gino Bartali's family, former teammates, a Holocaust survivor Bartali saved, and many others, Road to Valor is the first book ever written about the Italian cycling legend in English and the only book written in any language to fully explore the scope of Bartali's wartime work. An epic tale of courage, comeback, and redemption, it is the untold story of one of the greatest athletes of the 20th century.

Baron Giulio Cesare Andrea Evola, known to the English-speaking world as Julius Evola (1898-1974), was an Italian philosopher, magician, painter, occultist, Orientalist, linguist, and champion mountain climber. Often considered a pillar of Neo-Fascist thought, Evola opposed Fascism and called himself a “radical traditionalist”.

"Arrestato alle ore 22,30 dell'8 novembre 1926, davanti all'ingresso di via Morgagni 25, dimora dei Passarge, l'onorevole Gramsci venne tradotto al carcere di Regina Coeli. In quella manciata di minuti fu decretata la fine, o quasi, dell'attività politica di un militante appassionato e coraggioso, anche se si aprì la strada all'opera di un gigante del pensiero, politico, ma non solo." Angelo d'Orsi racconta questa storia dall'infanzia in Sardegna agli studi a Torino, da Mosca a Vienna, da Roma al carcere di Turi, fino alla clinica romana dove spirerà il 27 aprile 1937.

In 1997 a six-year-old boy questioned by authorities relayed disturbing stories of abuse. The more he talked, the more people were implicated in his shocking revelations. And he was only the first child to come forward. Within a year, fifteen more children with similar tales were transferred out of the Bassa region of Italy to protected locations. Their parents were accused of belonging to a satanic sect that performed sex rituals under the aegis of beloved local priest Don Giorgio Govoni. With each child’s confession, the network of monsters grew.

From village feasts and rustic tavernas to ancient piazzas and moonlit balconies, the smells, tastes, sounds, and soul of Umbria come alive in Marlena de Blasi's evocative memoir. By turns romantic and sensual, joyous and celebratory, touching and humorous, Marlena de Blasi's account of moving with her husband, Fernando, to Orvieto, the largest city in Italy's Umbria, will appeal to anyone who delights in travel and shares the fantasy of beginning a new life in a very different place.

Jan Wong knows food is better when shared, so when she set out to write a book about home cooking in France, Italy, and China, she asked her 22-year-old son, Sam, to join her. While he wasn’t keen on spending excessive time with his mom, he dreamed of becoming a chef. Ultimately, it was an opportunity he couldn’t pass up. On their journey, Jan and Sam live and cook with locals, seeing first-hand how globalization is changing food, families, and cultures.

Galileo Galilei began his career as a mathematician. Yet as fate would have it, he became far more than a numbers whiz. Here was a true Renaissance man; one who was greatly educated and a genuine lover of the arts. He was a fan of poets and a fine lute player. When in 1609 Galileo created his first telescope and turned his attention to the skies, everything changed.

During a 68-year career, conductor Arturo Toscanini (1867-1957) was famed for his fierce dedication, photographic memory, explosive temper, and impassioned performances. At various times he dominated La Scala, the Metropolitan Opera, the New York Philharmonic, the NBC Symphony, and the Bayreuth, Salzburg, and Lucerne festivals. His reforms influenced generations of musicians, and his opposition to Nazism and fascism made him a model for artists of conscience.

On Christmas Day, 800, Charlemagne was crowned "Emperor of the Romans" by Pope Leo III. Under his guidance the Carolingian Renaissance flourished, with his capital of Aachen becoming a center of learning and artistic genius. The legacy of Charlemagne on European history and culture is monumental. Yet, within 30 years of his death, his empire had fragmented. Who was this legendary ruler? How had he managed to rule these vast domains? And why has his legacy continued to influence Europeans to this day?

Galileo Galilei’s contributions to modern science were so fundamental to a variety of fields that even though he died almost 400 years ago, his name retains international acclaim. This 17th-century natural philosopher is often credited with the invention of the telescope, thanks to his many discoveries using that specific instrument, and though he was not, in fact, its inventor, the myth still persists.

New York Times Best Wine Book of 2021. South of Somewhere begins and ends in Robert Camuto’s maternal ancestral town of Vico Equense, Italy—a tiny paradise south of Naples on the Sorrento Peninsula. It was here in 1968, at 10-years-old, that the author first tasted Italian life.

La familia Gambino es un ejemplo paradigmático de las familias del crimen organizado, sus luchas internas y diversos estilos de liderazgo han definido la era de la mafia. Desde principios del siglo XX, la familia ha pasado por una serie de nombres y líderes, pero siempre se mantuvo en la cima del régimen mafioso de Nueva York y ha conservado sus vínculos sicilianos.

Bologna, 1858: A police posse, acting on the orders of a Catholic inquisitor, invades the home of a Jewish merchant, Momolo Mortara, wrenches his crying six-year-old son from his arms, and rushes him off in a carriage bound for Rome. His mother is so distraught that she collapses and has to be taken to a neighbor's house, but her weeping can be heard across the city. With this terrifying scene - one that would haunt this family forever - David I. Kertzer begins his fascinating investigation of the dramatic kidnapping.

Having three generations of her family living under the same roof was once part of the Italian dream for Rosie. But when her party-loving, whiskey-drinking, poker-playing 85-year-old mother moves over from Ireland to Italy, Rosie’s longed for dolce vita in Umbria is anything but sweet.

Storie della storia d’Italia dalla nascita della nazione, nel 1860, ai giorni nostri. Centocinquantadue racconti neri brevi e netti di delitti, carriere criminali e violenza pubblica. Gli omicidi che ancora si ricordano e quelli che furono celebri ai loro tempi: dalla Contessa Lara uccisa dal giovane amante e mantenuto (1896) al caso Murri che sconvolse Bologna (1902); dalla contessa Tarnowska dark lady russa a Venezia (1910) a Gino Girolimoni, falso mostro di Roma inventato dal fascismo (1927); da Leonarda Cianciulli, la saponificatrice di Correggio (1939), alla belva di San Gregorio Rina Fort (1946).

With a new roof and working electrics in place on her villa in Italy, Rosie is ready for the next phase of turning the 22-roomed derelict Italian villa into a home. It needs to be ready in time for her elderly Irish parents to move in and her daughter to finally visit after being separated for so long.

At thirteen years old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a child prodigy who had captured the hearts of northern Europe, but his father Leopold was now determined to conquer Italy. Together, they made three visits there the last when Mozart was seventeen, all vividly recounted here by acclaimed conductor Jane Glover. Father and son travelled from the theatres and concert salons of Milan to the church-filled streets of Rome to Naples, poorer and more dangerous than the prosperous north, and to Venice, the carnivelesque birthplace of public opera.

The City of Falling Angels opens on the evening of January 29, 1996, when a dramatic fire destroys the historic Fenice opera house. The loss of the Fenice, where five of Verdi's operas premiered, is a catastrophe for Venetians. Arriving in Venice three days after the fire, Berendt becomes a kind of detective - inquiring into the nature of life in this remarkable museum-city - while gradually revealing the truth about the fire.