Defeated enemies, as history shows, may become devoted allies. Once Rome had seemed the tyrant of Italy. After the successful outcome of the Social War, writes Harold Mattingly, her Italian neighbours took their places at her side, ready to assist her in the gigantic task of government.
Only ten years ago, Trieste seemed likely to become the Sarajevo of a Third World War. Here J. Garston, a military eye-witness, describes how, thanks to a combination of tact and firmness, an apparently impossible problem was for the time being solved.
Fischer von Erlach flourished in a new era of exhibitionism, Mary Henderson writes, to become the most influential Austrian architect of the Baroque period, shaping the tastes of the Habsburg empire.
F.M. Godfrey describes how, during the fifteenth century, the courtly civilization of Ferrara gave birth to splendid works of art.
E.E.Y. Hales profiles Pope Pius IX (1846-78), who saw the end of the Papacy as a temporal power as the opening of a new era in its world-relationships.
Scholar, humanist, aristocrat, Barbaro achieved distinction in many fields, and served the Venetian Republic well, as Alan Haynes records.
David Mitchell inspects Marinetti’s various admirations: the beauty of speed and war, and the destructive gestures of anarchists.
‘There is a middle state’, Landor once said, ‘between love and friendship, more delightful than either, but more difficult to remain in.’ Such was the affectionate association that the Duke and Lady Shelley long enjoyed, writes Prudence Hannay
David Stockton describes an important stage in the life of Cicero, the Roman philosopher, politican and theorist.
In the 1800s Rome became a microcosm for great power rivalries. E.L. Devlin describes a case of ambassadorial privilege that caused controversy between the papacy and the king of France.
