Through the Mailly family saga, the city of Paris became the cultural and political center of the nineteenth century, spanning the Napoleonic era, the Restoration, the July Monarchy, the 1848 uprisings, the Second Empire, the Commune, and the Belle Époque.In this context, different approaches and tensions emerge: musical Romanticism, great literature and poetry, art, which sees Impressionism as a fundamental shift for the contemporary era, and science, which, starting with electrica...

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...

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 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 century marking the transition from the Middle Ages to the modern era opens with a feudal legacy stemming from the internal divisions of France and England, still embroiled in the Hundred Years' War.Between mutual betrayals and the mystical figure of Joan of Arc, this historical transition marks the arrival of gunpowder in Europe, marking one of the world's epochal changes.Along with it, the invention of movable type printing and the fall of the Eastern Empire pave the wa...

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 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...

The new course of history after the final fall of the Western Roman Empire is revisited through the stories of three sets of twins, set in different places and contexts.Alongside a fleeting desire for restoration emanating from the East, which saw the great splendor of the Justinian era, but also the definitive collapse due to the plague and the endless wars that tore apart what remained of the Empire, the new era was characterized by the consolidation of Frankish power and the inva...

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...

Following the family saga originated by Servius Italicus, his descendants will find themselves facing new challenges and new problems, unfolding throughout the second century.The conquest of Dacia, the endless wars against the Parthians, the barbarian incursions will mark the territorial and cultural expansion of the adoptive principality, one of the most glorious pages of the Empire until the definitive caesura given by the Antonine plague and the civil war.In the background...

The travails of the third century, characterized by a profound social crisis in the Roman Empire, shaken by civil wars and constant invasions, inevitably affected the Italian family, beginning with the descendants of Numa, the imperial legate who won countless battles and would be the last witness of the Severan dynasty.In the darkest period of Rome's thousand-year history, amid usurpers and the end of patrician rule, there were key figures capable of averting collapse and restoring...

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...