Presents a biography of late fifteenth-century Italian political philosopher, musician, poet, and playwright, Niccolo Machiavelli; and provides an introduction to his writings and his influence on political and social thought of his day.
Contains an edition of Shakespeare's story about an aggressive, designing woman and a reluctant husband wooed by trickery including notes, and a stage history.
Tells the story of how fifteenth-century goldsmith and clock maker Filippo Brunelleschi devised the plan to build the dome of the Santa Maria del Fiore cathedral in Florence, an engineering feat that had puzzled architects for over a century.
Alessandra Cecchi becomes enchanted with a young painter her father has brought back from northern Europe to decorate the chapel walls in the family's Florentine palazzo, but their relationship is interrupted when Alessandra's parents arrange her marriage to a wealthy older man.
Vittorio, a five-hundred-year-old vampire, tells the story of how he was seduced at the age of sixteen by Ursula, the most beautiful of his supernatural enemies, after she saved him from being killed by her fellow vampires during a slaughter in which his entire family was wiped out.