Categories
life Military History

Intermission 22f

The Giro offered up some interesting castles this year. And as usual Italy is replete with historical narrative.

Hawkwood fighting for the Pope oversaw a massacre by his condottieri here in 1376

Next up Julius Ceasar would have to queue these days to cross his famous river

Crossing the Rubicon – its a bit busier these days……

Another city in the “Romagnol” also has fine surviving medieval fortress

Forlimpopoli

Forlimpopoli suffered in medieval times – it was a battleground for Papal control of the area.

Forli another city on the Via Emilia where in medieval times the Ordelaffi family fought the Popes for its control, finally being dominated after it was siezed by Cesare Borgia.

And Faenza too……..dominated in the 14th Century by the Guelph Manfredi

Into the mountains and we switch to Napoleonic themes

Rocca d’Anfo initially a Venetian fortification was expanded by Napoleon in the 1800’s

Not quite as many images this year but these aerial shots give a different perspective on some amazing historical sites across Italy.

Categories
Book Reviews

The Pursuit of Italy

David Gilmour packs into one volume an excellent exploration of Italy. Metternich once said that Italy was just a geographical expression. A Prince of the Empire, his point was that Italy could never be a single Nation.

Gilmour explores this and many other ideas about who, what, why, when and where Italy is and was.

Gilmour choses to avoid the chronological approach which I think was necessary given the compact nature of the book. It means he could be selective on topics and still feed in essential historical elements to suit.

If you buy one more recently written general book on Italy – I think this one gives you some really excellent perspective.

Highly recommended.