The second half of the 1400’s saw two cataclysmic events: The fall of Constantinople to the Turks and the expulsion of the Moors from Spain.
The terms of the Caltabellota treaty made it clear that the Angevins had not renounced claims to Sicily. The Spaniards and French went at it
The Sicilian Vespers led to the ousting of the French as rulers of Sicily and the installation of the Spaniards as rulers. When Frederick II
Frederick II, of the Hohenstaufen dynasty, was given this nickname: Stupor Mundi– Wonder of the World. He began his rule in 1198 and lasted until
William, ‘the Bad’, took over in 1154. What prompted the nickname ‘the bad’? He suffered from two main misfortunes: the first is that he was
With the Normans, Sicily would come into her golden age. Unfortunately for Sicily, that golden age ended 800 years ago. In 911, Rollo, a Viking,
This book was written by British historian John Julius Norwich. I will attempt to cover the chapters one at a time, other than this first
One of the interesting things to me in the current discussions over capitalism, is that those who talk down about capitalism typically blame the profit
I try to read one Italian novel, and one history/political theory book per month. I started early on the Italian novel thinking I’d be finished
Starting off 2024 doing some heavy lifting: first I read one of the more difficult Italian novels in Quer pasticciaccio brutto de via Merulana, then tackled the nearly one-million-word novel,
