Italy

Bernini in France

The visit of the Baroque master in 1665, writes Michael Greenhalgh, coincided with a rejection of Italian influence by French taste.

Prince Eugene and Turin, 1706

During the War of the Spanish Succession the Austrian commander marched westward from the Alps across Italy to win a remarkable battle.

Filippo Buonarroti

The first professional revolutionist was a descendant of Michelangelo’s brother; W.J. Fishman describes how, in Italy, France, and in exile, Filippo Buonarroti spent his life in radical conspiracy.

Garibaldi in England, 1864

The Italian patriot’s visit to England was extraordinarily successful. But Queen Victoria deplored the scenes it provoked; and Karl Marx described them as “a miserable spectacle of imbecility”.

Rome in 1860

From 1858 to 1870, a privileged and gifted English observer, Odo Russell, watched the declining fortunes of the Papal government. Russell reported in his strong and lucid style, writes Noel Blakiston, “as though they formed a chapter of medieval history.”

Garibaldi in London

Marcella Pellegrino Sutcliffe examines the political machinations behind a visit to England in 1864 of the Italian patriot and ‘liberator’, darling of the English establishment and radicals alike.