Italy Books

This is a beautiful volume covering the period on Northern European (Northern Renassaince) Art and its unmistakable influence on and how it helped to form, the slightly later period of Italian Renaissance masterpieces. Reproductions (excellent) and comparisons of the legacy the Flemish works is carefully, interestingly and convincingly postulated here.

I think this book is a valuable, well-written, addition for anyone drawn to these respective, but related, incompable periods of artistic accomplishment both in painting and sculpture by author Nuttall. You won't regret owning this book.

Firstly, this is a screaming bargain. 258 plates, many with lesser-known but important works, details and magnifications not easily seen elsewhere. Excellent quality printing and, though primarily aimed at academics, fairly easy to read with a minimum of artspeak.
Though an amateur reading a work of impressive scholarship, extensively referenced and annotated, I greatly enjoyed Dr. Nuttal's very well-told explanation of the sea change in Italian, especially Florentine, art caused by the exposure to, and cultivation of, the Flemish Primitives by the Italian merchant-bankers, especially the Medici and their agents in Brugge. There have been several major works about the Flanders/Italian art relationship, upon which this nicely focuses especially from a compositional and technique view. To completely detail the relationships of other city-states, the French duchies, the Hansa, the economic crises, the eventual effect on England would take many more volumes.
One can see much more in the era's incredible paintings and sculpture when one can see the connections between artists, between patrons, the Church and how they all influenced each other. For me this was a book I will refer to many times, and is greatly underpriced, recommended of course to art historians and students, but also to anyone who loves the era. Beware those who denigrate Memling... The Italians certainly didn't. And now you'll see why.

I suppose this should really be somewhere between four and five stars. I have always loved early Netherlandish painting, and this book shows how the Italians of the the early fifteenth century were a good generation behind the Northern painters in technique and achievement: artists like Massaccio, when compared to Robert Campin or Van der Weyden appear awkward and inept, the use of perspective artificial and stilted - it is no wonder that contemporary Italians so valued Northern art during the mid fifteenth century. It took Leonardo and Michelangelo to overtake painters like Van de Weyden from over fifty years earlier. However, there appears to be a gradual deterioration in quality as the century moved on, from the superb works of Campin, Van der Weyden and Jan Van Eyck to the rather mediocre productions of Memlinc, and the utterly awful Petrus Christus - interesting to see though, that the latter was greatly valued by one of the Medicis. By the end of the century, what is left over from the stunning realism and gravitas of the Ghent alterpiece is a sort of sacharine pastiche meriting Michaelangelo's acid comments (one also supposes that the great Northern alterpieces of the early quatrocento were not available in Italy). Overall, the book is beautifully produced, with comparisons of contemporaneous paintings by Northern and Italian artists (although I feel some of the assertions of influence may be a little far-fetched - after all, how many possible variations of pose are there in a three quarter view of a kneeling angel from the back?). Quality of reproduction is good, and the text gives interesting insight into the taste and viewpoints of the period. I would recommend this book for anyone interested in the Renaissance.

I purchased this book while visiting relatives in New York. I found it to be an excellent beginning for anyone interested in the people and events that made Italy what it is today. With brief, readable essays the author conveys the origins not only of the Italian nation, but also the motives behind why Italians look at the world the way they do. The author blends the historical with the personal and his essays convey a sense of what it means to be Italian.

I found the essays included here engaging, analytical, and interesting. I have read the author's fiction works and I like his style of writing. I found this book much more rewarding than the often sterile analysis of the Risorgimento that you find from historians writing about the period. The personal essays the author included add to an understanding of the Italian people.

Garibaldi's Ghosts is an excellent resource for those who want to know the reasons why their ancestors left their homes in Italy. Many Italian Americans do not know the plight of the Southern Italian immigrants short of family stories. Mr. DeAngelo's short and easy to read essays reveal what was going on in Italy during the Risorgimento period and how it affected the impoverished South. Many of these factors were lost on the poor and illiterate, yet they were the ones most affected. Garibaldi's Ghosts finally sheds light on the birth-pangs of the modern Italian nation.

If you want to teach your child about a great saint, this is the book. It has pictures and easy words. Really good.

If you want to teach your children about a great saint, this is the book. Both the illustrations and text are perfect for kids. I wish she would write about the other saints too.

This well written book will be a treasure for any child's library. Saint Francis of Assisi was one of the great Christians of the world. The message of simple living is one that children need to hear today. The drawings are delicately beautiful and very meaningful to the story.

The word to describe this novel is "haunting." I might also suggest "aching." The characters are caught in a situation they don't understand, at the mercy of microbes and superstition. The reader wants to cry out a warning to the characters across the centuries, but the nightmare plays out in silence. The new disease of syphilis destroys their bodies, their hopes, and their very lives, and our modern knowledge cannot help them.

The author knows his medicine and his medieval remedies, and he knows the dread history of the venerial diseases that American Indians exported to Europe through the voyages of Columbus. The innocent young prostitute/healer who is the focus of the story has a special curse: she carries the disease and spreads it, but cannot quite find the panacea to save the people she loves.

Trapped in ignorance and supersition. Without quite saying so, author Mosher lets us know that modern society is equally trapped, and equally vulnerable. Does sunburn cause cancer? Does a diet of meat cause heart disease? We think we know, but our medical theories will seem like charms and poultices to our grandchildren.

The cures to our ills will come... but not in time.

This is a powerful book that teaches powerful lessons. It will take a strong reader to face it.

A great read that takes you into the late 15 th century and lets you watch as both a love, a war, and an epidemic unfold. It's historically accurate, and fun to read.

A thoughtful and thought-provoking book, that unfolds as all great stories do, with suspense, adventure, romance and wisdom. It was a great experience to live back in 1493, in the midst of gripping turmoil with these vivid characters, and to be desperately rooting for reason to overcome ignorance and prejudice. The writer's voice is sure and strong and we know we are in good hands from the onset. A great read that I would recommend to all-an opportunity to be totally lost in a story and learn much to ponder for some time to come.

This is a great cookbook. It truly lives up to the claims of its title. The recipes with the lemon herb crepes are wonderful and I've added them to my list of things I serve company. We had the salmon picatta a couple of weeks ago and will definitely make it again. I also like how he suggests ways to tailor the recipes for vegetarians.

Lots of people will try a couple of recipes and then proclaim a cookbook good or bad. Well, I've used this cookbook for almost 5 months, and I've tested a lot of recipes now! My doctor recommended a Mediterranean diet when my blood pressure and weight got out of control. I had picked this cookbook up somewhere but had never used it. After my doctor read me the riot act, I dusted if off and for the last few months have cooked 50% of my meals from it. My husband, for the first time in 10 years, thinks I'm a good cook! I've lost 20 lbs and my BP is now almost in the normal range. Do I sound like a paid endorser; well, I'm not! I mean it's only part of the plan. I also eat properly at all my meals and get exercise. It's not one of those miracle plans you see on TV! But the food is beautiful, delicious, low fat and easy to prepare. What more could you want?! .... If I only owned 2-3 cookbooks this would be one of them. .... I mean it, this is just a very good book! Buy it, but only if you really plan to cook with it!

I'm always looking for new low-fat recipes, especially Italian, and this book is fantastic. After just a week of owning it, I can heartily recommend "Chicken with Balsamic Vinegar", "Chicken Alla Diavola" and "Mashed Potatoes with Sun-dried Tomatoes" (who've thought of that one! )

The recipes were easy to follow, simple to make (depending on your definition of simple) and offered plenty of flavour.

The introduction provides good information on various ingredients in Italian cooking (and low-fat Italian cooking), and the recipes offer antipasti, pasta in its many forms, vegetarian dishes, soups, desserts and more.

Definitely one of the best cookbook buys I've made recently!

For many of us at the turning point of age 60 or 70, the challenge of how to look ahead,at a time when we are often burdened by looking back,becomes central in our daily lives.

" A Hole in the Water" Mae Briskin'slatest novel, tells the story of Anne,age67,recently widowed,as she sets out to find explanations for some troublesome events in her past. The experiences and encounters thar develop, and her reckonings along the way, lead to a dramatic conclusion. It is an engrossing story, bound to challenge the reader's own reckonings.

Anne has been a housewife for decades: now she's an author and talk show host handling social issues and an ongoing concern over a long-missing daughter. She's drawn to girls who may have been her daughter, to a married man who has helped her search, and to a life and world filled with complicated choices. An absorbing story of an examined life.

In "A Hole in the Water," Mae Briskin has written an emotiional and intelligent exploration of a woman on her own. She uses memories and anticipation to fuel our desire to accompany the heroine, Anne, on her journey. And carry us along she does. From the earliest pages, we are intrigued with this woman who is traveling to Italy to search for a lost daughter and a possible lover, and to pay homage to catholics who she knows helped the Jews during World War II.

Anne is seeking "the pleasures of the senses," but she wants moral and ethical behavior to accompany them. We discover that she is witty, wise, angry, fallible, human, loving, and vulnerable. Looking back, she learns. Looking ahead, she is strengthened by every new experience and is optimistic about her own capacities for good.

Briskin treats many disparate themes, ranging from the Pope's conduct during the Nazi era, through the confused fidelity between parents and children, and the vagaries of adultery, with compassion and even humor. We care about Anne and the other characters who inhabit her world, who are all distinctly drawn. The reader is left with much to think about, including the fact that this book is truly a pleasure to read.

I think that Salvatore Robert Froio is a very talented writer and I look forward to reading more of his books.

Excellent story surrounding a benevolent secret society bent of assisting others sharing a common Calabrese heritage. As the founder and managing director of an organization devoted to the Italian region of Calabria, I find this especially interesting. Mr. Froio, of Calabrese ethnicity himself, has spun a great tale--one which begs for a sequel.
Il Circolo Calabrese (http://www.circolocalabrese.org) has placed this book on its list of "Must-reads".
Highly recommended!!

I found The Twenty Horns to be a fascinating read. As the son of an Italian imigrant, my Mother (who lived in Boston when first coming to the US), would talk about the obstacles she and her family faced. I was reminded of this when reading this piece. This story would make a great movie!

This book was fantastically entertaining! The man is as chaotic, eccentric, and strange as you would probably guess but did you know he was funny as well! Of course it is a bizarre sense of humor and some of it very nonsensical but it is interesting nonetheless. I couldn't put it down and since it is not written as an autobiography but snippets of interviews on a variety of topics--you can pick it up and begin reading on any page. I loved this book. A huge book for a huge personality and the pictures are amazing! Black and white rare photos of actors and scenes from his most memorable movies. Many of these are worthy of framing.

This book arrived in perfect condition and I received a very warm e-mail from the seller acknowledging my order and the shipment. Perfect!

This deluxe edition of what renowned Fellini specialist Tullio Kezich describes as the Maestro's "spiritual testament" (in his superb foreword to the book) is bona fide Fellini-esque. Hilarious anecdotes are squeezed in beside a number of very moving meditations on old age, sex, LSD, unemployment, Trivial Pursuit, God, Dante, death and the Hereafter. The newly restored black-and-white photos capturing the Italian director's surreal world are well-served by an excellent English translation. The final entry in the lexicon is a fairy tale titled "Zio Lupo" or "Uncle Wolf" and it pretty much defines Fellini's insatiability. Highly recommended.

This is a wonderful, quick read that brings alive a time gone by with fascinating stories and facts that still have something to teach us today. Other reviewers have done a great job of describing the content, so I won't repeat it here. But if you want to learn more about why and how and what it was like to immigrate to this country as a part of the great wave of immigration that brought the Italians and others, read this book. Because it's geared to kids it doesn't get bogged down with arcane detail, but the kids it aims at are old enough that the language holds an adult's interest too. And if you have a kid who's studying this period in history, or if you want them to have some idea of how his or her own family came to this country, give them this book. The pictures and stories will draw them in.

The Italian Americans is an informative and entertaining exploration of Italian immigrants in the United States and their descendants. Though it's targeted at junior-high students, the book is written in a clear, concise style that will interest adult readers as well.

Petrini examines the reasons why so many Italians left their native land between 1880 and 1920 to start a new life in the United States. She describes their living conditions in their new home, the sometimes arduous jobs that Italian American men, women, and children worked at in order to build their new lives, and the discrimination and exploitation many had to cope with.

The author documents some surprising facts: Did you know that a presidential order curtailed the civil liberties of Italian Americans during World War II, because of an unfounded fear that they might be spies for their native Italy? Thousands were actually incarcerated in camps by the U.S. government. And the biggest mass lynching ever documented in the United States took place in 1891, when an angry mob executed 19 innocent Sicilian-born residents of New Orleans. I didn't know about these injustices; Petrini's book describes these and other instances of discrimination against the new immigrants and their children.

Other chapters describe the Italian Americans' successful efforts to integrate into and contribute to their new society while preserving their own culture in "Little Italy" neighborhoods around the country. The book also discusses more recent contributions by the descendants of the immigrants in business, literature, science, and the arts.

Petrini makes it all come to life with plenty of first-hand accounts and interviews with immigrants and their children, and many wonderful old photographs highlight the text.

As a third-generation Italian American, I can say that this book made me feel prouder of my heritage than I was before -- and more informed about it, as well!

Since September 11, an undercurrent of anti-immigration feeling has targeted new Americans, in particular Arab-Americans. It's as if most of us have forgotten that we wouldn't be here ourselves if our parents, grandparents or greats hadn't emigrated to the United States. So it seemed particularly timely to me when I came across The Italian-Americans, part of a series on Immigrants in America, aimed at children as young as my grandsons (ages 9 and 10) but mainly geared for junior-high level. Until I read the book, I'd been ignorant of the fact -- as are most people -- that it wasn't only Japanese-Americans who were persecuted during WWII. Italian-Americans were also the objects of prejudice and discrimination.

The book doesn't start with WWII though, but goes back to the 19th century to explore the political and economic struggles that resulted in the establishment of Italy as a modern, independent country. It was most interesting to me in its depiction of the hard life of the peasant and manual laborer that drove so many to uproot themselves and make the arduous trip to start new lives in America. This depiction is a compassionate one, in which the author weaves individual stories and interviews into her more general historical account, and further embellishes these accounts with rare vintage photographs of immigrant families. How different my grandsons' lives are from those of the young boys their age who had to spend their days underground as "go-fers" for their fathers and older brothers as they labored in the mines.

The author also tells of the contributions made by Italian Americans that have enriched our national fabric -- not just such well known contributions as pizza, pasta and Frank Sinatra, but the accomplishments of individuals like Gugliemo Marconi, inventor of the radio, Olympic gymnast Mary Lou Retton, TV actress and film director Penny Marshall, and Vincent Palumbo, the late master carver at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC.

For all these reasons, I think the book would make a good supplement to the average history textbook, and it seemed to me that the depth of information might be useful to students well above the age range indicated by the publisher.

I'm not Italian myself, but much of this volume reminded me of stories told by my own immigrant grandfather. And it's a reminder of how much we owe to immigrants of every country. If the rest of the series is up to Petrini's effort, it should be most worthwhile reading.

This is the second of Carol Field's books that I've read (the first one I picked up was "Celebrating Italy") and her hallmarks seem to be meticulous, yet loving, research and a writing style that manages to evoke the sights, sounds, smells, textures, and flavors of Italian cooking to a mouth-watering degree.

"In Nonna's Kitchen" is a cookbook that Field researched by going to Italy and culling time-honored, taste-tested recipes from several authentic Italian grandmothers. I have not yet tried any of the recipes, but reading them feels like good eatin'. I usually dislike cookbooks that don't feature a picture of every recipe. "In Nonna's Kitchen" contains no pictures of food, but the recipes and Field's writing on Italian cuisine and culture make pictures unnecessary.

Ah, yes, culture. It's easy to see Field not so much as a food writer, but as an eager and loving student of Italian culture. She does much honor to the Italian grandmothers who contributed to this book by providing a lengthy, colorful profile of each of them. In these profiles, the "nonne" discuss how they learned to cook, what their lives have been like, how cooking has changed over the courses of their lifetimes, etc. In addition to these formal profiles, Field includes little anecdotes about several of the grandmothers within the recipes they provided.

These are not your stereotypical black-shawled, muttering Italian grandmothers, either. They range in age from 40s-90s, and a good many of them are classically beautiful, stylish women. All of them, however, are quintessentially Italian in that they place great importance on good, simple food made from the freshest local ingredients.

I plan to buy copies of "In Nonna's Kitchen" and "Celebrating Italy" for myself; they're too good not to own. Carol Field now has the distinction of being my favorite food writer!

For lovers of Italian food in particular, but for any lover of cooking and Italy, this is a must have for your collection. Every recipe is preceded by an introduction to the Nonna (Grandmother) whose speciality it is. These Nonnas run the gamut, from sophisticated Roman and Florentine women to women from small villages, still cooking as their own Nonnas did. I've tried several of the recipes and each has been spectacular. I'm buying another copy to take as a gift for a week-long 60th birthday celebration at a villa near Sienna. Ciao!

When my mother gave me this cook book, and I saw the word 'Nonna' in the title, I got a little choked up. I also whispered to myself, "this better be good." Well...'Bravo! Ti hai fatto bene!' You have done well. Yes, the recipes are wonderful, but the mood, the stories, the history of each of these Nonnas made me smile, and made me proud. Just as in my Nonna's cooking, these ladies are the best at turning leftovers into elegance. Wonderful subtle flavors - Crostini, Polpette, the Chocolate Ameretti Pudding...all we need is a deck of cards for Scopa! I made my Nonna write down her sauce recipe for me, because if I didn't, it would have died with her, recipes are verbal traditions handed down for generations...this is cooking history. Thank you. My wife thanks you too...books like this motivate husbands to cook more often.