Italy

The Renaissance in Italy, writes Alan Haynes, was enhanced by the arrival of scholars from Byzantium towards the end of the fourteenth century.

Alan Haynes describes how Italian scholars, merchants and craftsmen were welcomed in Elizabethan London and enjoyed high patronage.

Michael Grant describes how, when Etruscan civilization burst into flower, among its most characteristic products was a wealth of splendid jewels.

M.L. Clarke describes how, from the seventh century onwards, Rome attracted from Britain faithful pilgrims and churchmen with business to transact.

Michael Greenhalgh describes how a masterpiece of fifteenth-century Italian art was for a long time used as an ashtray, only to pass into the national collections.

As advocate, diplomatist and historian, writes Neil Ritchie, Aeneas Silvius was a much-travelled international figure before he became Pope.

In AD 79, Vesuvius erupted and destroyed Pompeii. Were the giants imprisoned in the earth by Hercules breaking out to take terrible vengeance on gods and men?

Michael Grant describes how the most essential single fact in the whole history of the Etruscans was their division into separate city states.

Over four centuries the University of Padua attracted a large number of foreign students, writes Alan Haynes, among whom the English were prominent.

From A.D. 400, writes E.R. Chamberlin, imperial Rome was subject to pillage and plunder, but Popes in the Renaissance destroyed in order to rebuild.