A Love Affair Inspiring the World's Most Unforgettable OperasExperience the intense, lifelong love affair between Giuseppe Verdi and Giuseppina Strepponi, the brilliant and seductive soprano who shaped his legacy. As his muse, lover, and wife, Strepponi was the inspiration behind Verdi's most iconic works, including La Traviata and Aida. Her influence was pivotal, as she became the architect of his creative triumphs and the heart of his operatic genius.Set ...

"Ever since the release of Amadeus, the concept of writing historical fiction based on the golden age of classical music has flourished… Frankly speaking, many of them are outstripped by this new riveting book. 5 out of 5 Stars"—ManhattanBookReview.comMeeting Mozart: A Novel Drawn From the Secret Diaries of Lorenzo Da Ponte is a deftly plotted and richly detailed historical novel that spans generations and involves Mozart, mysteries, masquerades, opera, and spies. It brings to ligh...

The New York Times–bestselling author of the Commissario Guido Brunetti series takes readers beyond the Venice police force in her first standalone novel.Caterina Pellegrini is a native Venetian, and like so many of them, she's had to leave home to pursue her career. With a doctorate in baroque opera from Vienna, she lands in Manchester, England. Manchester, however, is no Venice. When Caterina gets word of a position back home, she jumps at the opportunit...

A celebration of the language and culture of Italy, La Bella Lingua is the story of how a language shaped a nation, told against the backdrop of one woman’s personal quest to speak fluent Italian.For anyone who has been to Italy, the fantasy of living the Italian life is powerfully seductive. But to truly become Italian, one must learn the language. This is how Dianne Hales began her journey. In La Bella Lingua, she brings the story of her decades...

"The remarkable story of the two seventeenth-century geniuses. . . . A highly successful double biography." — BooklistThe rivalry between the brilliant seventeenth-century Italian architects Gianlorenzo Bernini and Francesco Borromini is the stuff of legend. Enormously talented and ambitious artists, they met as contemporaries in the building yards of St. Peter's in Rome, became the greatest architects of their era by designing some of the most beautiful bu...

Concise. Essential. Annotated. These three words describe what the books in My Pocket Gallery gives readers.This Art Book contains annotated reproductions of Leonardo da Vinci greatest masterpieces, date and interesting facts page below. Book includes Table of Contents, thumbnail gallery and is formatted for all e-readers and Tablets (use rotate and/or zoom feature on landscape/horizontal images for optimal viewing).

A huge international bestseller, this heartbreaking tale of a tiny Italian village during two World Wars will stay with you forever.Among the olive groves and vineyards of southern Italy, a boy and a girl are born, moments apart. Far away in the trenches of World War I, their fathers have just died. Now all the men in Vitantonio’s family have been wiped out – all twenty-one. All except him.Growing up together, war seems far away for the two children. But Vi...

A Wall Street Journal Book of the YearA Spectator Book of the Year“A truly intimate portrait of one of the greatest creators in human history,” this Leonardo Da Vinci biography brings both artist and Renaissance Italy to life (Noah Charney, author of The Art of Forgery).Why did Leonardo Da Vinci leave so many of his major works uncompleted? Why did this resolute pacifist build war machines ...

In glittering 18th-century Venice, music and love are prized above all else--and for two sisters coming of age, the city's passions blend in intoxicating ways.Chiaretta and Maddalena are as different as night and day. The two sisters were abandoned as babies on the steps of the Ospedale della Pietà, Venice's world-famous foundling hospital and musical academy. High-spirited and rebellious, Chiaretta marries into a great aristocratic Venetian family and eventually be...

Concise. Essential. Annotated. These three words describe what the books in My Pocket Gallery gives readers.This Art Book contains annotated reproductions of Caravaggio greatest masterpieces, date and interesting facts page below. Book includes Table of Contents, thumbnail gallery and is formatted for all e-readers and Tablets (use rotate and/or zoom feature on landscape/horizontal images for optimal viewing).Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (September 1571 – 18 July 1610) w...

The untold story of Michelangelo's final decades—and his transformation into one of the greatest architects of the Italian RenaissanceAs he entered his seventies, the great Italian Renaissance artist Michelangelo despaired that his productive years were past. Anguished by the death of friends and discouraged by the loss of commissions to younger artists, this supreme painter and sculptor began carving his own tomb. It was at this unlikely moment that fate intervene...

Born in Venice, Italy, Antonio Vivaldi was one of the most influential and highly regarded Baroque composers, although his fame blazed only briefly. He is most remembered for his concertos, particularly “The Four Seasons,” but his overall production was enormous, ranging from orchestral and vocal music for both secular and church settings, as well as opera scores and libretti. In addition, Vivaldi was a master violinist and spent much of his career as an instructor at a famous institution ...