…an experienced, industrious, ambitious, and often quite often picturesque liar…

The scarith of Scornello : a tale of Renaissance forgery  Ingrid D. Rowland  Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2004  Hardcover. 1st ed. and printing. x, 230 p. : ill. ; 21 cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. 205-220) and index. Clean, tight and strong binding with clean dust jacket. No highlighting, underlining or marginalia in text. VG/VG

A precocious teenager, bored with life at his family’s Tuscan villa Scornello, Curzio Inghirami staged perhaps the most outlandish prank of the seventeenth century. Born in the age of Galileo to an illustrious family with ties to the Medici, and thus an educated and privileged young man, Curzio concocted a wild scheme that would in the end catch the attention of the Vatican and scandalize all of Rome.

As recounted here with relish by Rowland, Curzio preyed on the Italian fixation with ancestry to forge an array of ancient Latin and Etruscan documents. For authenticity’s sake, he stashed the counterfeit treasure in scarith (capsules made of hair and mud) near Scornello. To the seventeenth-century Tuscans who were so eager to establish proof of their heritage and history, the scarith symbolized a link to the prestigious culture of their past. But because none of these proud Italians could actually read the ancient Etruscan language, they couldn’t know for certain that the documents were frauds. The Scarith of Scornello traces the career of this young scam artist whose “discoveries” reached the Vatican shortly after Galileo was condemned by the Inquisition, inspiring participants on both sides of the affair to clash again – this time over Etruscan history.

An expert on the Italian Renaissance and one of only a few people in the world to work with the Etruscan language, Rowland writes a tale so enchanting it seems it could only be fiction. In her investigation of this seventeenth-century caper, Rowland captivates readers with her sense of humor and obvious delight in Curzio’s far-reaching prank. And even long after the inauthenticity of Curzio’s creation had been established, this practical joke endured: the scarith were stolen in the 1980s by a thief who mistook them for the real thing.

Unhappy spirits that fell with Lucifer, Conspired against our God with Lucifer, And are for ever damned with Lucifer… Christopher Marlowe

Faustus : the life and times of a renaissance magician  Leo Ruickbie  Stroud, UK : History Press, 2009  Hardcover. 1st ed. 256 p., [8] p. of plates : ill. ; 25 cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. [239]-250) and index. Clean, tight and strong binding with clean dust jacket. No highlighting, underlining or marginalia in text. VG/VG

Five hundred years ago the legend was born of a man who sold his soul to the Devil for power, wealth and women. It is a legend that has inspired genius and still inspires high art and popular culture alike. Around the world there are hundreds of nightly performances of Goethe’s Faust, as well as actual attempts at soul-selling on eBay. Faustus has rightly been described as an ‘icon of modern culture.’ But in 500 years no one has written his biography – until now.

Faustus is the real story behind the legend. It is the story of a sixteenth-century scandal, of a man who claimed mastery of the forbidden magical arts and dared to rival the miracles attributed to Jesus. He evoked uproar and was accused of heinous crimes. But Faustus was not a charlatan; nor was he in league with the Devil. To find the real Faustus is to find the true history of his age, and Ruickbe expertly takes the reader on a tour of war-torn Italy, Reformation Wittenberg and the magnificence of Charles V’s court. The life of the legend becomes as real as any living person.

‘…tactically the most absurd and strategically the most senseless campaign of the whole war.’ Major-General J F C Fuller’s verdict on the Italian Campaign, 1948

USS Ancon (AGC-4)Catholic church services being held on board off Mers el Kebir, Algeria, on 4 July 1943, just before the invasion of Sicily. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives.

A hard way to make a war : the Italian campaign in the Second World War  Ian Gooderson  London : Conway, 2008  Hardcover. 1st ed. 352 p., [24] p. of plates : ill., maps ; 25 cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. 343-346) and index. Clean, tight and strong binding with clean dust jacket. No highlighting, underlining or marginalia in text. VG/VG

Sicily Invasion, July 1943 Task Force 85 (“Cent” Force) en route to the landings at Scoglitti, Sicily, on 8 July 1943. Photographed from its flagship, USS Ancon (AGC-4). USS Leonard Wood (APA-12) is at left. The next transport astern of her is USS James O’Hara (APA-90). The destroyer in the center is not identified; USS Parker (DD-604), Kendrick (DD-612), Laub (DD-613), Mackenzie (DD-614), Cowie (DD-632), Doran (DD-634), and Earle (DD-635) were assigned to this force. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives.

The invasion of Sicily in June 1943 and the landings on the Italian mainland in the September, gave the Allies their first toehold in Europe since 1941. But it was achieved at a cost. Following success on Sicily the forces were put under considerable pressure to take advantage of the changed situation and they landed at Salerno without a clear strategic aim and were met with fierce German counterattack. The subsequent march north was complicated by Italy’s unique terrain (mountains and rivers), its climatic extremes (very hot summers; freezing winters) and German resistance, and was agonisingly slow.

Lieutenant General Mark W. Clark, U.S. Army (left), Commanding General, Fifth Army, and Rear Admiral Alan G. Kirk, USN, Commander Task Force 85 On board USS Ancon (AGC-4) during the Sicily operation, July 1943. In the right background is Captain Paul L. Mather, USN, Ancon’s Commanding Officer. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives.

Ian Gooderson’s considered analysis of the entire campaign places the convoluted mixture of air, land and naval actions into the overall war but, more importantly, shows how the commanders on the battlefield dealt with the military issues as they arose. He has produced one of the finest explanations of a combined forces twentieth-century battle zone ever published. Erudite assessment of one of the most complex and least covered areas of action in the war includes land, sea and air operations, studies the complex alliances and mixed commands of the Allied forces and covers all the major battles such as Salerno and Monte Cassino in detail.

An Army Piper L-4 Cub artillery observation plane takes off from an LST at Anzio, 1944. LST-386 had an improvised “flight deck” installed in 1943 and flew off four such planes during the landing on Sicily. Later LST modifications, like this one, could carry up to 10 planes and supported the Anzio landing and the invasion of southern France. During 1944, LST-776 evaluated an experimental catapult for launching light planes, as well as Brodie gear. In this system, a cable was stretched between booms to one side of the ship, and planes were launched from a quick-release trolley. LST-776 operated Marine OY-1’s over Iwo Jima and Army L-4’s at Okinawa.

In Italy for thirty years under the Medici they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love; they had five hundred years of democracy and peace and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock… Orson Welles

Murder of a Medici princess Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2008     Caroline P. Murphy Florence (Italy)Court and courtiers History 16th century, Medici, Isabella Romola de’, 1542-1576 Hardcover. 1st. ed. and printing. 397 p., [8] p. of plates: ill. (some col.), map; 25 cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. 353-379) and index. Clean, tight and strong binding with clean dust jacket. No highlighting, underlining or marginalia in text. VG/VG

In Murder of a Medici Princess, Caroline Murphy illuminates the brilliant life and tragic death of Isabella de Medici, one of the brightest stars in the dazzling world of Renaissance Italy, the daughter of Duke Cosimo I, ruler of Florence and Tuscany.

Murphy’s narrative captures the intrigue, the scandal, the romantic affairs, and the violence that were commonplace in the Florentine court. She brings to life an extraordinary woman, fluent in five languages, a free-spirited patron of the arts, a daredevil, a practical joker, and a passionate lover.

Isabella, in fact, conducted numerous affairs, including a ten-year relationship with the cousin of her violent and possessive husband. Her permissive lifestyle, however, came to an end upon the death of her father, who was succeeded by her disapproving older brother Francesco. Considering Isabella’s ways to be licentious and a disgrace upon the family, he permitted her increasingly enraged husband to murder her in a remote Medici villa.

To tell this story, Murphy draws on newly discovered and unpublished documents, ranging from Isabella’s own letters, to the loose-tongued dispatches of ambassadors to Florence, to contemporary descriptions of the opulent parties and balls, salons and hunts in which Isabella and her associates participated. Murphy resurrects the atmosphere of Renaissance Florence, weaving Isabella’s beloved city into her story, evoking the intellectual and artistic community that thrived during her time.

Once did she hold the gorgeous East in fee, And was the safeguard of the West… William Wordsworth

The horses of St Mark’s: a story of triumph in Byzantium, Paris and Venice New York, Overlook Press, 2010 Charles Freeman Bronze sculpture, Classical  Italy  Venice; Europe  History; Horses of San Marco  History Hardcover. 1st. American ed. and printing.  xiv, 298 p.: ill., ports.; 24 cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. Clean, tight and strong binding with clean dust jacket. No highlighting, underlining or marginalia in text. VG/VG

The Horses of St. Mark’s in Venice are among art’s finest creations — and certainly one with a story like no other. Charles Freeman explores the mysterious origin of the statues and their turbulent movements through Europe over the centuries: in Constantinople, at both its founding and sacking in the Fourth Crusade; in Venice, at both the height of its greatness and fall in 1797; in the Paris of Napoleon, and the revolutions of 1848; and back in Venice. In this book, Freeman shows how the horses came to stand at the heart of European history time and time again.