Italy

Renaissance Florence had a problem: it wanted female sex workers, but it also needed to offer them a way out. The solution was a new brothel district – and a nunnery for former prostitutes

Rome’s first theatre was an enormous spectacle intended to glorify Pompey’s successes. Was it all bread and circuses?

Giovanni Morell—later Morelli—was born in Verona on 25 February 1816 beginning a lifetime of dedication to the art of the connoisseur.

The survival of the papacy has always been dependent on a precarious balancing act between the pope’s religious and secular powers.

The Grammar of Angels: A Search for the Magical Powers of Language by Edward Wilson-Lee finds in Giovanni Pico della Mirandola a case for the Rennaissance as a triumph not of individuality, but of universal experience.

Naples 1343: The Unexpected Origins of the Mafia – Amedeo Feniello’s history of the Camorra – has this much in common with the case against them: it’s all about the evidence.

Ancient Roman election advice suggested some uncomfortable campaign strategies. Evidence from Pompeii suggests many candidates followed it enthusiastically.

On 27 September 1130 a Norman usurper gained a crown from a desperate pope and the Kingdom of Sicily was born.

The Catholic Church’s ban on wigs in the 18th century was as revealing of attitudes towards disability as vanity and sanctity.

In Catherine de’ Medici: The Life and Times of the Serpent Queen, Mary Hollingsworth helps the pragmatic queen escape her ‘black legend’.