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The calendar. The Senate. The university. The piano, the heliocentric model, and the pizzeria. It's hard to imagine a world without Italian influence-and easy to assume that inventions like these could only come from a strong, stable peninsula, sure of its place in the world. In this breakneck history, bestselling author Ross King dismantles this assumption, uncovering the story of a land rife with inner uncertainty even as its influence spread.
As the Italian tale unfolds, prosperity and power fluctuate like the elevation in the Dolomites. If Rome's seven hills could talk, they might speak of the glorious time of Trajan-or bemoan the era of conquest and the Bubonic Plague that decimated Rome's population. Episodes of wealth like the First Triumvirate and the time of the Medicis are given fresh life alongside descriptions of the Middle Ages, the early days of Venice, the invasion of Napoleon, and the long struggle for unification.
Highlighting key events and personalities, King paints a vibrant portrait of a country whose political and cultural legacies enrich our lives today.
List of contents
- "That People in Togas": Ancient Italy and the Roman Republic
- "Let the Die Be Cast": The Crisis of the Roman Republic
- "Masters of All in Existence": The Roman Empire
- "From a Kingdom of Gold to One of Iron and Rust": Decline and Fall of the Empire
- Goths, Longbeards, Franks, Saracens, and Normans: Italy Under the "Barbarians"
- "All the Cities of Italy": The Middle Ages
- Italy's Age of Gold: The Renaissance
- "Go, Thought, on Golden Wings": Italy in the Illuminismo
- "Here We Make Italy": The Risorgimento
- "Dov'è La Vittoria?": The Kingdom of Italy
- The "Putrid Corpse" of Liberty: Italy Under Fascism
- "Andrà Tutto Bene": Italy Since the War
About the author
Ross King is the author of The Shortest History of Italy and The Shortest History of Ancient Rome, along with many bestselling books on Italian art and history, including Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling and Brunelleschi’s Dome. He lectures widely on Renaissance art at museums, is a regular participant in Italian Renaissance seminars at the Aspen Institute such as at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Frick Collection, and the National Gallery.
