This is no guide book, to be dipped into like a dictionary or an encyclopaedia, but a journey through time that unfolds like a novel or a good detective story. Caesars, popes, artists, composers...you will meet them all, not so much in what is said about them, as in what they reveal about themselves in their letters, diaries and notebooks. Cities, also -- with a major focus on Rome, Florence and Venice, but with individual chapters on Pompeii, Ravenna, Assissi etc. If you have been to Italy, or plan to go -- or if you would just love to 'read all about it', you will find this book fresh, informative and eminently readable.