'A remarkably moving document that, like the best of the elemental war stories, eventually becomes a statement about the unplanned nature and folly of war'_The New York Times At the height of the Second World War, Italy was being torn apart by German armies, civil war, and the eventual Allied invasion. In a corner of Tuscany, one woman - born in England, married to an Italian - kept a record of daily life in a country at war. Iris Origo's compellingly powerful diary, War in Val d'Orcia, is...

The last - and arguably most intense - love affair of one of the greatest British poets Teresa Guiccioli was just nineteen, and recently married to a jealous husband nearly three times her age, when she met Byron. He was one of the most infamous men in Europe; she was an inexperienced but beautiful provincial noblewoman. For the next four years, until Byron went to Greece, this formed the basis of a passionate, scandalous, and very intense love affair. Iris Origo, bestselling biographer an...

An extremely moving account of the lonely life of the unloved and tragic genius - described as "the greatest modern Italian poet" 'Love me, by God; I need love, love, love, fire, enthusiasm, life. The world does not seem made for me' Giacomo Leopardi, considered the greatest Italian poet since Dante, was one of the most radical thinkers of the nineteenth century. He also regarded himself one of the most miserable and unfortunate people to have lived. Born to strict parents in a provincial ...

A gripping unpublished diary from the bestselling diarist and biographer, covering Italy's descent into war Iris Origo, one of the twentieth century's great diarists, was born in England in 1902. As a child, she moved between England, Ireland, Italy and America, never quite belonging anywhere. It was only when she married an Italian man that she came to rest in one country. Fifteen years later, that country would be at war with her own. With piercing insight, Origo documents the grim absur...

The lucidly written memoir of Iris Origo, the writer of the bestselling War in Val d'Orcia It has only been through my affections that I have been able to perceive, however imperfectly, some faint "intimations of immortality" Images and Shadows is the story of those affections: for a loving, shy father, who died when his daughter was very young; for a vital, headstrong mother; for friends and family, alive and dead. And for the places Origo lived: Ireland, America, England; the childhood h...

'Origo's diaries, trenchantly and pithily written, are a glory' SpectatorIris Origo, one of the twentieth century's great diarists, was born in England in 1902. As a child, she moved between England, Ireland, Italy and America, never quite belonging anywhere. It was only when she married an Italian man that she came to rest in one country. Fifteen years later, that country would be at war with her own.With piercing insight, Origo documents the grim ...

Iris Origo was one of the twentieth century's most attractive and intriguing women, a brilliantly perceptive historian and biographer whose works remain widely admired. Iris grew up in Italy where she became part of the colourful and privileged Anglo-Florentine set that included Edith Wharton, Harold Acton and the Berensons.When Iris married Antonio Origo, they bought and revived La Foce, a derelict stretch of the beautiful Val d'Orcia valley in Tuscany and created an estate that th...

"The charm of certain vacant grassy spaces, in Italy, overfrowned by masses of brickwork that are honeycombed by the suns of centuries, is something that I hereby renounce once for all the attempt to express; but you may be sure that whenever I mention such a spot enchantment lurks in it." —Henry JamesIn these essays on travels in Italy written from 1872 to 1909, Henry James explores art and religion, political shifts and cultural revolutions, and the nature of tra...

'Memory's images, once they are fixed in words, are erased,' Marco Polo said. 'Perhaps I am afraid of losing Venice all at once, if I speak of it, or perhaps, speaking of other cities, I have already lost it, little by little.' Italo Calvino, Invisible CitiesVenice, La Serenissima, is one of the most breathtaking cities in the world. A floating labyrinth; the world's greatest museum, frozen in time; a cultural jewel, slowly sinking into the lagoon from which it ro...

In the waning days of Venice’s glory in the mid-1700s, Andrea Memmo was scion to one the city’s oldest patrician families. At the age of twenty-four he fell passionately in love with sixteen-year-old Giustiniana Wynne, the beautiful, illegitimate daughter of a Venetian mother and British father. Because of their dramatically different positions in society, they could not marry. And Giustiniana’s mother, afraid that an affair would ruin her daughter’s chances to form a more suitable union, ...

The most prominent exponent of Venetian art, Titian was equally adept with portraits and landscapes, as well as mythological and religious subjects. His celebrated use of colour would exercise a profound influence on future generations of Western art. Delphi’s Masters of Art Series presents the world’s first digital e-Art books, allowing digital readers to explore the works of great artists in comprehensive detail. This volume presents Titian’s complete paintings in beautiful detai...

In 1957, Giuseppe Tomasi, the last Prince of the Sicilian Lampedusa family, died impoverished and unknown, leaving behind the manuscript of a book he had recently finished. The following year the book, The Leopard, was published in Italy and has since been widely translated and recognized as one of the great novels of the twentieth century. For over a quarter of a century, the reclusive man's papers were hidden from the public, until David Gilmour was befriended by Lampedusa's adopted son....