florence (italy)

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A traveler's guide to the city of Florence and the region of Tuscany focusing on the history, culture, art, lodging, restaurants, shopping, and places to visit.

A biography of Niccolo Machiavelli, author of "The Prince," tracing his life from a young boy to controversial political thinker in Renaissance Italy.

Three American middle school students are not going to be taken in when, on a school trip to Florence, Italy, they meet a man claiming to be Leonardo da Vinci, back from the dead. This imposter claims to have a mission to better humankind, and, remarkably, it seems plausible. Gina, Max, and Tad decide to assist this man, who just may be Leonardo in truth, and learn a lot about modern science, history, math, and art along the way.

The Befanini family rules the kitchens of the de Medici and their allies, serving well by fortifying their patrons' reputations and influence with all the power that a brilliant meal can supply. Young Ginevra Befanini serves more directly as companion and confidante to Caterina de Medici, while Ginevra's brother Tommaso is learning his family's craft and enhancing it with his own ideas and talents. The political forces of Renaissance Florence pull and push at them; plague stalks them; and other alien forces move through the kitchens and the city, menacing Caterina and her friends.

No face has ever captivated so many for so long. Every year more than nine million visitors trek to her portrait in the Louvre. Yet while everyone recognizes her smile, hardly anyone knows her story. This book rests on the premise that the woman in the Mona Lisa is indeed the person identified in its earliest description: Lisa Gherardini (1479-1542), wife of the Florence merchant Francesco del Giocondo. Descended from ancient nobles, she gave birth to six children and died at age sixty-three. Her life spanned the most tumultuous chapters in the history of Florence, decades of war, rebellion, invasion, siege, and conquest--and of the greatest artistic outpouring the world has ever seen. Her story creates an extraordinary tapestry of Renaissance Florence, inhabited by larger-than-legend figures such as Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Machiavelli.

A comprehensive biography of Lorenzo de'Medici, Italian statesman and ruler of the Florentine Republic during the Italian Renaissance.

Collects Anne Rice's "Pandora," in which an ancient vampire shares her experiences since her days as one of the living during the time of Christ before being changed into the undead; and "Vittorio, the Vampire," in which a five-hundred-year-old vampire relates how he was seduced, at the age of sixteen, by Ursula, a supernatural creature who saved him from being killed.