Italian Literature

Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, the author of one of the most poignant and enduringly popular novels of the twentieth century, left only a few other pieces of fiction when he died prematurely at the age of sixty. Childhood Memories and Other Stories ,...
By: Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa

In the summer of 1348, the plague ravages Florence, and ten young Florentines take refuge in the countryside, where they entertain themselves with tales of love, death and corruption, featuring a host of colourful characters from lascivious...
By: Giovanni Boccaccio

A macabre evocation of obsessive love beyond the grave; a nobleman possessed by the soul of a servant girl; a man’s mysterious phobia of the letter U; and the unexpected gift of everlasting life becoming a dreaded, endless curse – these are just...
By: Igino Ugo Tarchetti

Includes An Excursion around the Slums of London by Louis Laurent Simonin As a first-time visitor to London, De Amicis was awestruck by the bustle and magnificence of the Victorian metropolis and wrote a number of sketches in his trademark witty,...
By: Edmondo de Amicis

After her tragical death in December 1938 at the early age of twenty-six, Antonia Pozzi’s poems – which she had been secretly writing for years – were brought to light and became the object of great critical attention, going through several editions...
By: Antonia Pozzi

Describing Dante’s second stage in his arduous journey to redemption, Purgatory features a host of unforgettable scenes and characters, and arguably some of the best poetry to be found in The Divine Comedy . The gloom, torments and evils of Hell...
By: Dante Alighieri

Dante’s dramatic journey down the circles of Hell, up the mountain of Purgatory and through the spheres of Heaven in search of redemption – and his encounter with devils, monsters and the souls of sinners and saints – is one of the cornerstones of...
By: Dante Alighieri

Dante’s dramatic journey down the circles of Hell, up the mountain of Purgatory and through the spheres of Heaven in search of redemption – and his encounter with devils, monsters and the souls of sinners and saints – is one of the cornerstones of...
By: Dante Alighieri

The Vita Nuova , with its unusual blend of prose and poetry, is universally recognized as Dante’s early masterpiece and provides an indispensable prequel to The Divine Comedy . Set in thirteenth-century Florence, part autobiography and part...
By: Dante Alighieri