Mona Lisa PDF Download

Author: Dianne Hales
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1451658966
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
The book rests on the premise that the woman in the painting "Mona Lisa" is indeed the person identified in its earliest description: Lisa Gherardini (1479-1542), wife of the Florence merchant Francesco del Giocondo. Dianne Hales has followed facts from the Florence State Archives, to the squalid street where Mona Lisa was born, to the ruins of the convent where she died

Author: Dianne Hales
Publisher: Crown Archetype
ISBN: 0451499182
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
A jubilant celebration of Italy’s outsize impact on culture, from literature to art, music to movies, that “masterfully examines the multitude of reasons why so many people fall in love with Italy and the Italian lifestyle” (Forbes) Can you imagine painting without Leonardo, opera without Verdi, fashion without Armani, food without the signature tastes of pasta, gelato, and pizza? The first universities, first banks, first public libraries? All Italian. New York Times bestselling author Dianne Hales attributes these landmark achievements to la passione italiana, a primal force that stems from an insatiable hunger to discover and create; to love and live with every fiber of one's being. This fierce drive, millennia in the making, blazes to life in the Sistine Chapel, surges through a Puccini aria, deepens a vintage Brunello, and rumbles in a gleaming Ferrari engine. Our ideal tour guide, Hales sweeps readers along on her adventurous quest for the secrets of la passione. She swims in the playgrounds of mythic gods, shadows artisanal makers of chocolate and cheese, joins in Sicily’s Holy Week traditions, celebrates a neighborhood Carnevale in Venice, and explores pagan temples, vineyards, silk mills, movie sets, crafts studios, and fashion salons. She introduces us, through sumptuous prose, to unforgettable Italians, historical and contemporary, all brimming with the greatest of Italian passions—for life itself. A lyrical portrait of a spirit as well as a nation, La Passione appeals to the Italian in all our souls, inspiring us to be as daring as Italy’s gladiators, as eloquent as its poets, as alluring as its beauties, and as irresistible as its lovers. Praise for La Passione “[An] effervescent love letter to all things Italian.”—Newsday “In this sweeping account of la passione italiana from ancient to modern times, Dianne Hales shows once again why she is one the world’s foremost guides to the riches of Italian culture. Every page resonates with the author’s love for Italy and her joy in sharing its remarkable discoveries and exquisite pleasures with her readers.” —Joseph Luzzi, author of My Two Italies and In a Dark Wood “Hales takes us on an enriching and delightful journey, filled with fascinating characters, scintillating sensual details, and an authentic connection to the ever-inspiring Italian heart and soul that has given the world boundless pleasures.” —Susan Van Allen, author of 100 Places in Italy Every Woman Should Go

Author: Barbara Grizzuti Harrison
Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
ISBN: 0802190294
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 483

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Book Description
A “contagiously exuberant” celebration of Italian food, culture, and history that “will be the companion of visitors for years to come” (The Washington Post Book World). In an absorbing journey down the Italian peninsula, essayist, journalist, and fiction writer Barbara Grizzuti Harrison, offers a fascinating mixture of history, politics, folklore, food, architecture, arts, and literature, studded with local anecdotes and personal reflections. From fashionable Milan to historic Rome and primitive, brooding Calabria, Harrison reveals her country of origin in all its beauty, peculiarity, and glory. Italian Days is the story of a return home; of friends, family, and faith; and of the search for the good life that propels all of us on our journeys wherever we are. “Harrison’s wonderful journal will make you update your passport and dream of subletting your job, home, etc. . . . With Harrison, you never know with whom you’ll be lunching, or climbing down a ruin. You just know you want to be there.” —Glamour

Author: Beppe Severgnini
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0307486877
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
Join the bestselling author of Ciao, America! on a lively tour of modern Italy that takes you behind the seductive face it puts on for visitors—la bella figura—and highlights its maddening, paradoxical true self You won’t need luggage for this hypothetical and hilarious trip into the hearts and minds of Beppe Severgnini’s fellow Italians. In fact, Beppe would prefer if you left behind the baggage his crafty and elegant countrymen have smuggled into your subconscious. To get to his Italia, you’ll need to forget about your idealized notions of Italy. Although La Bella Figura will take you to legendary cities and scenic regions, your real destinations are the places where Italians are at their best, worst, and most authentic: The highway: in America, a red light has only one possible interpretation—Stop! An Italian red light doesn’t warn or order you as much as provide an invitation for reflection. The airport: where Italians prove that one of their virtues (an appreciation for beauty) is really a vice. Who cares if the beautiful girls hawking cell phones in airport kiosks stick you with an outdated model? That’s the price of gazing upon perfection. The small town: which demonstrates the Italian genius for pleasant living: “a congenial barber . . . a well-stocked newsstand . . . professionally made coffee and a proper pizza; bell towers we can recognize in the distance, and people with a kind word and a smile for everyone.” The chaos of the roads, the anarchy of the office, the theatrical spirit of the hypermarkets, and garrulous train journeys; the sensory reassurance of a church and the importance of the beach; the solitude of the soccer stadium and the crowded Italian bedroom; the vertical fixations of the apartment building and the horizontal democracy of the eat-in kitchen. As you venture to these and many other locations rooted in the Italian psyche, you realize that Beppe has become your Dante and shown you a country that “has too much style to be hell” but is “too disorderly to be heaven.” Ten days, thirty places. From north to south. From food to politics. From saintliness to sexuality. This ironic, methodical, and sentimental examination will help you understand why Italy—as Beppe says—“can have you fuming and then purring in the space of a hundred meters or ten minutes.”

Author: Beppe Severgnini
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0593315642
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
One-of-a-kind timeless lessons for handling challenges and living with joy, the Italian way—“with unparalleled insight and brilliant wit, Severgnini’s book not only transports us to Italy but deep into the Italian mind and spirit" (Stanley Tucci, host of Searching for Italy). Is there an Italian way to deal with life? Can we all learn something from the Italians? Italy often arouses in Americans a unique mix of attraction and bafflement, moderate disapproval and incredible allure. From the Italians' love of poetry to an innate desire to socialize to the regional differences between the north and the south, Beppe Severgnini, who has dedicated his career to the meticulous observation of his compatriots, embarks on an enthralling quest to identify a core Italian identity and explore how that identity has evolved since the global pandemic. Told with the warmth and humor of a longtime friend, Severgnini touches upon patience, endurance, and wisdom, and offers a one-of-a-kind set of timeless lessons for overcoming trials, the Italian way.

Author: Peter D'Epiro
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 038572019X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 418

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Book Description
A witty, erudite celebration of fifty great Italian cultural achievements that have significantly influenced Western civilization from the authors of What Are the Seven Wonders of the World? “Sprezzatura,” or the art of effortless mastery, was coined in 1528 by Baldassare Castiglione in The Book of the Courtier. No one has demonstrated effortless mastery throughout history quite like the Italians. From the Roman calendar and the creator of the modern orchestra (Claudio Monteverdi) to the beginnings of ballet and the creator of modern political science (Niccolò Machiavelli), Sprezzatura highlights fifty great Italian cultural achievements in a series of fifty information-packed essays in chronological order.

Author: Dianne Hales
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0767932110
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
A celebration of the language and culture of Italy, La Bella Lingua is the story of how a language shaped a nation, told against the backdrop of one woman’s personal quest to speak fluent Italian. For anyone who has been to Italy, the fantasy of living the Italian life is powerfully seductive. But to truly become Italian, one must learn the language. This is how Dianne Hales began her journey. In La Bella Lingua, she brings the story of her decades-long experience with the “the world’s most loved and lovable language” together with explorations of Italy’ s history, literature, art, music, movies, lifestyle and food in a true opera amorosa — a labor of her love of Italy. Over the course of twenty-five years, she has studied Italian through Berlitz, books, CDs, podcasts, private tutorials and conversation groups, and, most importantly, time spent in Italy. In the process the Italian language became not just a passion and a pleasure, but a passport into Italy’s storia and its very soul. She invites readers to join her as she traces the evolution of Italian in the zesty graffiti on the walls of Pompeii, in Dante’s incandescent cantos and in Boccaccio’s bawdy Decameron. She portrays how social graces remain woven into the fabric of Italian: even the chipper “ciao,” which does double duty as “hi” and “bye,” reflects centuries of bella figura. And she exalts the glories of Italy’s food and its rich and often uproarious gastronomic language: Italians deftly describe someone uptight as a baccala (dried cod), a busybody who noses into everything as a prezzemolo (parsley), a worthless or banal movie as a polpettone (large meatball). Like Dianne, readers of La Bella Lingua will find themselves innamorata, enchanted, by Italian, fascinated by its saga, tantalized by its adventures, addicted to its sound, and ever eager to spend more time in its company.

Author: Margo Sorenson
Publisher: Regal House Publishing
ISBN: 9781947548206
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
A fictional celebration of Italian life and culture where seventeen-year-old Alessandra returns for the summer to Italy, where she grew up. While confronting organized crime in the picturesque small town of Positano and babysitting a rebellious twelve year old, Alessandra loses her heart to a handsome Italian boy who hides secrets of his own.

Author: Dianne Hales
Publisher: Broadway
ISBN: 0767927699
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 255

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Book Description
Follows the author's quest to learn Italian over twenty-five years and her study of the ties between the language and Italy's culture, literature, history, and food.

Author: Dianne R. Hales
Publisher: Brooks/Cole Publishing Company
ISBN: 9780534582036
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 478

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Book Description
This new book from best-selling author Dianne Hales covers Fitness, Nutrition, Weight Control, and some selected Wellness topics. It emphasizes fitness as the best means to achieving the goal of feeling our best and living our lives to their fullest, and focuses on the key to living more happily and more healthfully: personal responsibility.