The eighteenth century began with the absolutism of the Sun King and the pervasive presence of empires like the English and Russian, and ended with the figures of Napoleon and the independence of the United States of America.This transformation was made possible by three distinct, and almost simultaneous, revolutions: the American, the French, and the Industrial Revolution.These revolutions were based on two solid pillars: the Enlightenment, which owed much of its foundation ...

The seventeenth century was the century of the great scientific revolution, with the inductive and experimental methods developed by Bacon and Galileo, the discoveries of optics, Kepler's laws, Descartes's philosophical system, the ideas of Pascal and Spinoza, and, finally, the great work of Newton.The same century was also pervaded by the destruction and disease caused by the Thirty Years' War, a conflict that tore Europe apart, almost completely annihilating the population of Germ...

The colonization of the Americas, Protestantism, and the Catholic Counter-Reformation are the three pillars of the sixteenth century around which the diverse human experiences of individuals unfold.In Spain, entire families of colonists and explorers found themselves having to deal with the destruction of pre-Columbian civilizations by the conquistadors, and the blunder of Charles V's Universal Empire was not unanimously approved.Few would seek a balance with those population...

The vain attempt to reconcile knowledge, expressed in philosophical, theological, artistic, and scientific forms, with the harshness of history characterizes the history of the twelfth century.On the one hand, there are magnificent examples, such as the Norman cultural renaissance of Sicily under Roger II, up to the great intellectual peaks of Anselm of Aosta, Peter Abelard, and Averroes. On the other, there are the eternal imperial struggles against the Papacy or the emerging commu...

The fragmentation of the Holy Roman Empire due to internal struggles among Charlemagne's heirs and the arrival of Norman history marked the unfolding of events in the ninth century, through a relentless succession of hopes and immediate disillusionments regarding a past that was not destined to repeat itself.At the same time, the individual families belonging to these peoples tended to follow events, following the decisions of others. The Empire crumbled, and with it, the history of...

Three distinct portraits of tenth-century life unfold chronologically, from the Heian era in Japan, marked by the rise of the Fujiwara clan, to the rebirth of the Holy Roman Empire under Otto I of Saxony, and finally to the Viking spirit of adventure that reached the farthest reaches of northern Iceland and Greenland.Amid these events, several families of middle and lower social standing operate, each with their own desire for greatness and expansion, leveraging the qualities and ta...

The relationship between the Papacy and power that marked the period of the Avignon Papacy and the conditions that would spark the Hundred Years' War form the backdrop to the events of a French family of Norman origin torn between the concreteness of money and the revolutionary ideas of William of Ockham.These divergent paths were the seeds of future great rivalries between France and England, which began to emerge in the fourteenth century.The middle of the century was domin...

Servio Italico's choice to break with his family's traditions will give rise to a lineage that, for five generations, will walk alongside the history of the first century.From the defeat of Teutoburg to the conquest of Britain, from the death of Octavian Augustus to the fire of Rome, from the eruption of Vesuvius to the first campaign of Dacia, men and women will find themselves in the presence of the founding idea of the Roman Empire, shaken by novelties and evolutions in an attemp...

With the rise of Constantine to the helm of the Roman Empire, religion became a crucial element, along with civil wars and barbarian invasions, shaping the entire history of the fourth century. This was characterized by a continuous transformation of society, much more concerned with cultural, philosophical, and theological aspects than with military tradition.The Italics were no exception, and generations adapted to these new customs, a clear sign of a decline that was both inevita...

The sack of Rome by the Visigoths opens the history of the fifth century, which witnesses the definitive decline of the Western Roman Empire and Italy as the central hub of the world known until then.The ensuing decline of society continues for generations until the effective dismemberment of every pre-established order, bringing the history of the Italics to its final conclusion.No longer united, but divided, as would happen to future peoples, their entire tradition crumbles...

Following the symbolic unfolding of a solar year, multiple existences intersect their destinies with thoughts and actions halfway between the particular and the abstract.Olga chronologically relives the events that take her around the world, ignoring the existence of her alter-ego given by Eleonora. Their double destiny will be to never cross paths, not even when space and time come to touch.At the end of the logical cycle, several women's stories bring attention back to the ...

Two families, two social and cultural contexts contiguous in space and time, are totally confined and divided not only by precise political choices, but also by the actions of individual people.In apartheid South Africa, an in itself paradoxical situation becomes normality for decades and the same subsequent turning point overturns prejudices and expectations.Entire communities suffer the consequences, adapting and changing, despite a rigid distinction destined to implode und...