Category Archives: Italy

Italy Needs Me: The Life and Death of Silvio Berlusconi

The life of Silvio Berlusconi had one great theme: man’s battle with time. Vigorous daily exercise routines and public jogging sessions; an obsession with personal hygiene driven by a deep phobia of germs; an epic struggle against hair loss that … Continue reading

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Roman Tragedy: Lucio Fulci’s ‘Beatrice Cenci’

Guido Reni’s portrait of Beatrice Cenci retains pride of place at the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica in Palazzo Barberini, just off Piazza Barberini in Rome. The old story that it was completed by Reni on the eve of Beatrice’s execution … Continue reading

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On the Legacy of George L. Mosse

Past history is always contemporary. George L. Mosse, The Nationalisation of the Masses In Confronting History, his posthumously published memoir, George L. Mosse recalled the occupation of Mossehaus, the headquarters of Rudolf Mosse’s German publishing empire, during the Spartacist Uprising … Continue reading

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Slaughter Commissions: Crime Films and the Italian Crisis

Review of the Arrow Films box set Years of Lead: Five Classic Italian Crime Thrillers, 1973-1977 (Mario Imperoli, Like Rabid Dogs; Vittorio Salerno, Savage Three; Massimo Dallamano, Colt 38 Special Squad; Stelvio Massi, Highway Racer; Vittorio Salerno, No, the Case … Continue reading

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The Jews in Fascist Italy

And he would shake his head, with the expression of someone who, should they wish to, could even understand such subtleties and complications, but who is just not minded to. Such tiny fine discriminations, intriguing and engaging as they might … Continue reading

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Ezra Pound & Salò

I want to go on fighting. Canto 72 In 1948, the year James Laughlin published The Pisan Cantos, Ezra Pound remained incarcerated in St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, a Federal Government asylum in Washington, having been found mentally unfit to stand trial … Continue reading

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