Italy

Radical Light: Italy’s Divisionist Painters

Lucy Riall explores the social and political issues in Italy following the country’s unification. She shows how these issues became the focus for a dynamic new artistic movement of the 1890s, Divisionism, a forerunner to Futurism and the subject of a current exhibition at the National Gallery.

Mussolini’s Fascism

Thomas Meakin asks to what extent Italian Fascism represented a triumph of style over substance.

Pact With the Devil?

One of the great conspiracy theories of the Second World War is that the ­Americans struck a deal with Mafia mobsters to ­conquer Sicily. Tim Newark exposes the truth behind this notorious story of Mafia collaboration.

Italy’s Fascist War

Philip Morgan explains why Italians have tended to gloss over the period 1940-43, when Mussolini fought against the Allies, preferring to remember the years of German occupation 1943-45.

Giuseppe Mazzini

Robert Pearce highlights Giuseppe Mazzini’s role in the Risorgimento.

Hadrian’s Hall

Charles Freeman visits the Eternal City, and finds the Castel Sant’Angelo, home to emperors and popes, to be the clue to unravelling its fabulously rich and complex history.