For the traveler who wants more historical background information than can be found in a guidebook. Thorough and easy to read. Italian author, Tullio, movingly describes the life in his native Comino Valley between Naples and Rome. This has long been the most respected work on the Italian nation, and rightly so. Barzini leaves no stone unturned in his quest to pinpoint the real Italy.
Spender melds history, anecdote, and personal observation into a cultural profile of unique charm.
A loving evocation of a rich and complex region. With the historian's ability to uncover the past, Gene Brucker skillfully relates the story of Florence's Golden Age and the conjoined forces that transformed the city on the Arno into one of the most glorious civilizations the world has known. In a place where political and religious ideology has always been expressed through art, Jonathan Boardman highlights other aspects of Rome's vibrant popular culture. Mary McCarthy has written two travel classics on Florence and Venice. In her easy-flowing, eloquent style, she presents wonderful observations of these cities and their people, past and present.