Italy

Venice developed the most sophisticated intelligence network in Renaissance Europe, securing it from enemies within and without.

Love and possession during the Italian economic miracle.

The arrival of Napoleon’s troops in Venice in 1797 instigated one of the biggest plunders in the history of art. 

Never fully exorcised, the memory of Italy’s fascist past is fading.

Salò was Mussolini’s German-backed experiment in ‘real Fascism’ and fine living. Italians find it hard to come to terms with its legacy.

Though many writers, film-makers and other artists found it difficult to work in Fascist Italy, modernist architecture flourished under the less than watchful gaze of Mussolini.

Food and drink have a habit of landing Rome’s leaders in trouble.

Larry Gragg investigates the evidence behind ‘Bugsy’ Siegel’s claim that he planned to kill the high-ranking Nazi in 1939.

During the fifteenth century the Medici banking house in Florence ‘almost passed belief’ in power and influence.