Italy

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.

Neil Ritchie describes the long and busy career of the son of the famous Earl of Leicester: Robert Dudley sought employment with an Italian Grand Duke and distinguished himself as navigator, map-maker, naval architect and builder of maritime fortifications.

The temples of Paestum have long been admired. Only recently, writes Neil Ritchie, have archaeologists unearthed a wealth of associated works of art.

Aram Bakshian Jr. profiles a true Venetian, Lorenzo Da Ponte, who, like his associate Casanova, had an extravagant and boldly adventurous career.

Odo Russell, writes Alec Randall, was Britain’s unofficial diplomatic agent at the Vatican during the years when Italy was unified and when the controversy took place over the Papal Syllabus.