Italy

Saving the Lagoon in Renaissance Venice

Renaissance Venetians developed a sophisticated technology for keeping the city’s vital waterways free from silt and in the process, as Joseph Black explains, created a unique landscape that inspired travellers and painters.

Masaniello's Naples Revolt Against Spain

The son of a fisherman's revolt against Spanish taxes on fruit in Naples, on 7 July 1647, was part of a wider challenge to Spanish overlordship throughout the Habsburg domains.

Greece Goes West

A look at a new exhibition in Venice, which shows the flow of culture between East and West in early Greece.

Un americano a Roma

David Ellwood discusses America's cultural take-over of Europe in a seemingly innocent Italian 1950s comedy called "Un Americano a Roma". The comedy features a hapless hero whose attempts to Americanise himself mirror Italy's struggle to handle a clash of cultures after World War II.