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This volume in the series Documentary History of the Jews in Italy illustrates the history of the Jews in Sicily from 1490 to 1497. It is the sequel to the first seven volumes and covers the events during the rule of the Catholic Kings Ferdinand and Isabella, following the unification of Spain. They cover the last years leading up to the expulsion, the expulsion itself, and a few events in its aftermath. A further deterioration in the position of the Jews took place in those last years of their...

Pizza is one of the best-known and widely exported Italian foods and yet relatively little is known about its origins in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Myths such as the naming of pizza margherita after the Italian queen abound, but little serious scholarly attention has been devoted to the topic. Eschewing exaggerated fables, this book draws a detailed portrait of the difficulties experienced by the then marginalized class of pizza makers, rather than the ultimate success of their desc...

This book investigates the relationship between the ideas of nation and race among the nationalist intelligentsia of the Italian Risorgimento and argues that ideas of race played a considerable role in defining Italian national identity. The author argues that the racialization of the Italians dates back to the early Napoleonic age and that naturalistic racialism—or race-thinking based on the taxonomies of the natural history of man—emerged well before the traditionally presumed date of the lat...

The New Life is the masterpiece of Dante’s youth, an account of his love for Beatrice, the girl who was to become his lifelong muse, and of her tragic early death. An allegory of the soul’s crisis and growth, combining prose and poetry, narrative and meditation, dreams and songs and prayers, The New Life is a work of crystalline beauty and fascinating complexity that has long taken its place as one of the supreme revelations in the literature of love.   The New Life is published here in the bea...

Joachim of Fiore has been described as the most singular and fascinating figure of mediaeval Christendom. This title explores his unique understanding of history and looks at the powerful influence of his ideas.

At the mention of Vienna, many visitors think of Sachertorte, romantic open carriage trips and an evening in one of the local wine taverns. But the old imperial city has much more to offer: this book presents a comprehensive, richly illustrated view of the art treasures to be found in the Danube metropolis. The main focus is on the baroque era with its magnificent church buildings and palaces including the Hofburg, Schonbrunn and Belvedere; the architectural highlights on the new Ringstrasse; an...

After sixty years and fifteen editions and reprints in Italy, this classic, groundbreaking work in the field of historical urban studies is now published in English. A masterful, fluent narrative leads the reader through the last two centuries in the history of the Eternal City, capital of the Papal State, then of the united Italy, first under the monarchy and subsequently the republic. Rome's chaotic growth and often ineffective urban planning, almost invariably overpowered by building speculat...

Campaldino is one of the important battles between the Guelphs and Ghibellines - the major political factions in the city states of central and northern Italy. It heralded the rise of Florence to a dominant position over the area of Tuscany and was one of the last occassions when the Italian city militias contested a battle, with the 14th century seeing the rise of the condottiere in Italy's Wars. In this highly illustrated new study, renowned medieval historians Kelly De Vries and Niccolo Cappo...

The most important theatrical movement in sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century Europe, the commedia dell'arte has inspired playwrights, artists, and musicians including Moliere, Dario Fo, Picasso, and Stravinsky. Because of its stock characters, improvised dialogue, and extravagant theatricalism, the commedia dell'arte is often assumed to be a superficial comic style. With Befriending the Commedia dell'Arte of Flaminio Scala, Natalie Crohn Schmitt demolishes that assumption. By reconstructi...

This book provides a fresh interdisciplinary analysis into the lives of migrant children and youth over the course of the twentieth century and up to the present day. Adopting biopolitics as a theoretical framework, the authors examine the complex interplay of structures, contexts and relations of power which influence the evolution of child migration across national borders. The volume also investigates children's experiences, views, priorities and expectations and their roles as active agents...

Historians have long held that during the decades from the end of the Habsburg-Valois Wars in 1559 until the outbreak in 1618 of the Thirty Years' War, Spanish domination of Italy was so complete that one can refer to the period as a "pax hispanica." In this book, based on extensive research in the papers of the ambassadors who represented Charles V and Philip II, Michael J. Levin instead reveals the true fragility of Spanish control and the ambiguous nature of its impact on Italian political an...