Download or read book War in Val D Orcia written by Iris Origo and published by Allison & Busby. This book was released on 2011-09-01 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is quite impossible to attach importance to material possessions now. All that one still clings to is a few vital affections' Iris Origo, October 1943. Marchesa Iris Origo and her husband had been settled at their rural estate of La Foce since 1924. When the Second World War broke out Origo, an Englishwoman married to an Italian landowner, had divided loyalties. But as the war dragged on and the hostilities escalated, the small community of Val d'Orcia found themselves helping evacuees, orphans, refugees, prisoners of war and soldiers from both sides, concerned less with who was fighting whom than caring for those who needed their aid. Origo kept her diary throughout this time, when the risk of betrayal was a fact of life and the penalty for helping the enemy would result in death. Even with German troops occupying her manor house, she wrote at night about her valiant attempts to shelter refugees, burying her diary in the garden each morning. The result is a book which has become a classic, an affirmation in itself of courage and resistance, and an unsentimental, compelling story of the trials and tragedies of wartime.
Download or read book Iris Origo written by Caroline Moorehead and published by David R. Godine Publisher. This book was released on 2002 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A biography.
Download or read book A Chill in the Air written by Iris Origo and published by New York Review of Books. This book was released on 2018-08-07 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This recently discovered “trenchant, intelligent” follow-up to the British expatriate’s classic memoir, War in Val d’Orcia, chronicles life in Italy in the year leading up to WW2 (New Yorker). This insightful diary provides a vivid, ground-level account of how Mussolini decided on a course of action that would devastate his country and ultimately destroy his regime. In 1939 it was not a foregone conclusion that Mussolini would enter World War II on the side of Hitler. Though the British-born Origo lived with her Italian husband on an estate in a remote part of Tuscany, she was supremely well-connected and regularly in touch with intellectual and diplomatic circles in Rome, where her godfather, William Phillips, was the American ambassador. Her diary documents the Fascist government’s growing infatuation with Nazi Germany as Hitler’s armies marched triumphantly across Europe, and the campaign of propaganda and intimidation that was mounted in support of its new aims. The book ends with the birth of Origo’s daughter and Origo’s decision to go to Rome to work with prisoners of war at the Italian Red Cross. A Chill in the Air offers an indispensable record of Italy at war as well as a thrilling story of a formidable woman’s transformation from observer to actor at a great historical turning point.
Download or read book Images and Shadows written by Iris Origo and published by New York Review of Books. This book was released on 2019-10-15 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An extraordinary memoir by Iris Origo, who chronicled political life in A Chill in the Air and War in Val d'Orcia, and now turns inward to describe her own family, the work of writing, and the transcience of memory. Images and Shadows, Iris Origo’s autobiographical account of her early life, is as perceptive and humane and beautifully written as her celebrated memoir War in Val d’Orcia. Origo’s father came from an old and moneyed American family, her mother was the daughter of an Irish peer, and Iris grew up in the most privileged of circumstances. Her father died of tuberculosis when he was only thirty, and her mother moved to Fiesole, Italy, where she and Iris developed a close friendship with the great connoisseur and art historian Bernard Berenson. Later, Origo and her Italian husband transformed a desolate and deforested Tuscan property into a flourishing estate, and it was there that she discovered her true calling as a writer. In Images and Shadows, Origo paints portraits of her shy, loving father and her headstrong mother, and describes beloved places, the books that formed her sensibility, and how she grew up and made her way in the world. She reflects on the pleasures and challenges of writing and evokes the persistence and fragility of memory. Images and Shadows is an autobiography that is as thoughtful as it is profoundly touching.
Download or read book Dark Water written by Robert Clark and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2008-10-07 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Birthplace of Michelangelo and home to untold masterpieces, Florence is a city for art lovers. But on November 4, 1966, the rising waters of the Arno threatened to erase over seven centuries of history and human achievement. Now Robert Clark explores the Italian city’s greatest flood and its aftermath through the voices of its witnesses. Two American artists wade through the devastated beauty; a photographer stows away on an army helicopter to witness the tragedy first-hand; a British “mud angel” spends a month scraping mold from the world’s masterpieces; and, through it all, an author asks why art matters so very much to us, even in the face of overwhelming disaster.
Download or read book A Thousand Days in Tuscany written by Marlena de Blasi and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2005-09-27 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: They had met and married on perilously short acquaintance, she an American chef and food writer, he a Venetian banker. Now they were taking another audacious leap, unstitching their ties with exquisite Venice to live in a roughly renovated stable in Tuscany. Once again, it was love at first sight. Love for the timeless countryside and the ancient village of San Casciano dei Bagni, for the local vintage and the magnificent cooking, for the Tuscan sky and the friendly church bells. Love especially for old Barlozzo, the village mago, who escorts the newcomers to Tuscany’s seasonal festivals; gives them roasted country bread drizzled with just-pressed olive oil; invites them to gather chestnuts, harvest grapes, hunt truffles; and teaches them to caress the simple pleasures of each precious day. It’s Barlozzo who guides them across the minefields of village history and into the warm and fiercely beating heart of love itself. A Thousand Days in Tuscany is set in one of the most beautiful places on earth–and tucked into its fragrant corners are luscious recipes (including one for the only true bruschetta) directly from the author’s private collection.
Download or read book A Need to Testify written by Iris Origo and published by Helen Marx Books. This book was released on 2002 with total page 414 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introduction by Ted Morgan When originally released in the early 1980s, New Statesman called Origo's final book 'a sensitive and beautifully written book by a remarkable writer.' Available again in this new edition, Origo's memoir tells the story of four friends, writer Lauro de Bosis, American monologuist Ruth Draper, the historian Gaetano Salvemi, and author of 'Fontamara' and 'Bread and Wine', Ignazio Silone, each of whom made various life sacrifices in the fight for a non-fascist Italy. Illustrated throughout with photos.
Download or read book Midnight In Sicily written by Peter Robb and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2014-08-05 with total page 484 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year A New York Public Library Best Book of the Year From the author of M and A Death in Brazil comes Midnight in Sicily. South of mainland Italy lies the island of Sicily, home to an ancient culture that--with its stark landscapes, glorious coastlines, and extraordinary treasure troves of art and archeology--has seduced travelers for centuries. But at the heart of the island's rare beauty is a network of violence and corruption that reaches into every corner of Sicilian life: Cosa Nostra, the Mafia. Peter Robb lived in southern Italy for over fourteen years and recounts its sensuous pleasures, its literature, politics, art, and crimes.
Download or read book Dante Cinema and Television written by Amilcare A. Iannucci and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2004-01-01 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) is one of the seminal works of western literature. Its impact on modern culture has been enormous, nourishing a plethora of twentieth century authors from Joyce and Borges to Kenzaburo Oe. Although Dante's influence in the literary sphere is well documented, very little has been written on his equally determining role in the evolution of the visual media unique to our times, namely, cinema and television. Dante, Cinema, and Television corrects this oversight. The essays, from a broad range of disciplines, cover the influence of the Divine Comedy from cinema's silent era on through to the era of sound and the advent of television, as well as its impact on specific directors, actors, and episodes, on national/regional cinema and television, and on genres. They also consider the different modes of appropriation by cinema and television. Dante, Cinema, and Television demonstrates the many subtle ways in which Dante's Divine Comedy has been given 'new life' by cinema and television, and underscores the tremendous extent of Dante's staying power in the modern world.
Download or read book The Tuscan Contessa written by Dinah Jefferies and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2020-07-16 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ONE WAR. TWO WOMEN. WILL THEY BE ABLE TO SAVE THE ONES THEY LOVE? A sweeping new novel from the number one Sunday Times bestselling author of The Tea Planter's Wife In 1943, Contessa Sofia de' Corsi's peaceful Tuscan villa among the olive groves is upturned by the sudden arrival of German soldiers. Desperate to fight back, she agrees to shelter a wounded British radio engineer in her home, keeping him hidden from her husband Lorenzo - knowing that she is putting all of their lives at risk. When Maxine, an Italian-American working for the resistance, arrives on Sofia's doorstep, the pair forge an uneasy alliance. Feisty, independent Maxine promised herself never to fall in love. But when she meets a handsome partisan named Marco, she realizes it's a promise she can't keep... Before long, the two women find themselves entangled in a dangerous game with the Nazis. Will they be discovered? And will they both be able to save the ones they love? 'Dinah Jefferies has a remarkable gift for conjuring up another time and place with lush descriptions, full of power and intensity' Kate Furnivall 'A stunning story of love and loyalty in wartime' Rachel Hore 'Beautiful writing, wonderful characters, gripping story, and such a gorgeously evoked Tuscan setting - how I loved this! Such a perfect, immersive summer read!' Jenny Ashcroft 'A lush, fast-moving, gripping story that will keep you guessing till the last pages. A perfect summer read' Gill Paul 'It's so rich & the historical details so transporting. Reading this novel is like being swept into a wonderful movie' Eve Chase
Download or read book War in Val D Orcia written by Iris Origo and published by . This book was released on 1951 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Shaping of Tuscany written by Dario Gaggio and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book shows how the seemingly immutable Tuscan landscape was largely shaped by modern conflicts over economic resources and cultural meanings.
Download or read book A Tuscan Childhood written by Kinta Beevor and published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. This book was released on 2015-04-09 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Wonderful ... I fell immediately into her world' Frances Mayes, author of Under the Tuscan Sun Kinta Beevor was five years old when she fell in love with her parents' castle facing the Carrara mountains. She and her brother ran barefoot, exploring an enchanted world. They searched for wild mushrooms in the hills with Fiore the stonemason, and learned how to tickle trout. The freedom and beauty of life at the castle attracted poets, writers and painters, including D.H. Lawrence and Rex Whistler. The other side to Kinta's childhood was very different, for it was spent with her formidable great aunt, Janet Ross, in a grand villa outside Florence. But soon the old way of life and Kinta's idyllic world were threatened by war. Nostalgic, yet unsentimental and funny, A Tuscan Childhood is a book which transports the reader to bohemian, aristocratic Italy and the sound of bells from a distant campanile.
Download or read book The Battle for Rome written by Robert Katz and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-05-11 with total page 742 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In September 1943, the German army marched into Rome, beginning an occupation that would last nine months until Allied forces liberated the ancient city. During those 270 days, clashing factions -- the occupying Germans, the Allies, the growing resistance movement, and the Pope -- contended for control over the destiny of the Eternal City. In The Battle for Rome, Robert Katz vividly recreates the drama of the occupation and offers new information from recently declassified documents to explain the intentions of the rival forces. One of the enduring myths of World War II is the legend that Rome was an "open city," free from military activity. In fact the German occupation was brutal, beginning almost immediately with the first roundup of Jews in Italy. Rome was a strategic prize that the Germans and the Allies fought bitterly to win. The Allied advance up the Italian peninsula from Salerno and Anzio in some of the bloodiest fighting of the war was designed to capture the Italian capital. Dominating the city in his own way was Pope Pius XII, who used his authority in a ceaseless effort to spare Rome, especially the Vatican and the papal properties, from destruction. But historical documents demonstrate that the Pope was as concerned about the Partisans as he was about the Nazis, regarding the Partisans as harbingers of Communism in the Eternal City. The Roman Resistance was a coalition of political parties that agreed on little beyond liberating Rome, but the Partisans, the organized military arm of the coalition, became increasingly active and effective as the occupation lengthened. Katz tells the story of two young Partisans, Elena and Paolo, who fought side by side, became lovers, and later played a central role in the most significant guerrilla action of the occupation. In retaliation for this action, the Germans committed the Ardeatine Caves Massacre, slaying hundreds of Roman men and boys. The Pope's decision not to intervene in that atrocity has been a source of controversy and debate among historians for decades, but drawing on Vatican documents, Katz authoritatively examines the matter. Katz takes readers into the occupied city to witness the desperate efforts of the key actors: OSS undercover agent Peter Tompkins, struggling to forge an effective spy network among the Partisans; German diplomats, working against their own government to save Rome even as they condoned the Nazi repression of its citizens; Pope Pius XII, anxiously trying to protect the Vatican at the risk of depending on the occupying Germans, who maintained order by increasingly draconian measures; and the U.S. and British commanders, who disagreed about the best way to engage the enemy, turning the final advance into a race to be first to take Rome. The Battle for Rome is a landmark work that draws on newly released documents and firsthand testimony gathered over decades to offer the finest account yet of one of the most dramatic episodes of World War II.
Download or read book Leopardi written by I. Origo and published by . This book was released on 1974 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book An Infinity of Graces written by Ethne Clarke and published by WW Norton. This book was released on 2013-07-02 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An exploration of the work of the English architect and landscape designer who practiced almost exclusively in Italy from 1907 to midcentury. English expatriate Cecil Ross Pinsent was responsible for the design and construction of new villas and gardens such as the elegant rural estate La Foce, and the renovation of many historically sensitive ones, including Villa I Tatti, Villa Le Balze, and Villa Medici. Edith Wharton sought his advice; Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson admired and were influenced by him. Geoffrey Scott, author of The Architecture of Humanism, dedicated the book to him; and Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe, England’s premier landscape architect, regarded Pinsent as his “first maestro on the placing of buildings in the landscape.” This first book dedicated to bringing to light Pinsent’s contribution to garden design is generously illustrated with photographs from his previously unpublished albums and archive of architectural drawings and sketches, and his letters to family friends and clients.
Download or read book Restoration written by Olaf Olafsson and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2012-02-07 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A tremendous talent.” —Boston Globe “Restoration is an elegantly constructed work of fiction, seamlessly moving between the past and the present.” —Ron Rash, bestselling author of Serena Acclaimed novelist Olaf Olafsson brings us Restoration, a sweeping story of love tested by human frailty and the terrors and tragedies of war. Departing from the landscapes of his native Iceland—so beautifully evoked in Absolution, The Journey Home, and other previous works—Olafson sets Restoration in the gorgeous Italian hills of Tuscany during the World War Two years of the early 1940s. He captivates readers with a deeply emotional story in the vein of The English Patient by Michael Ondaajte, Ian McEwan’s Atonement, and other contemporary literary classics, spinning a tale of passion, art, war, and betrayal centered around a pair of love triangles and a forged Caravaggio.
