A look at Italy, where research suggests inhabitants have a lower degree of satisfaction with the status quo than their peers across a broad range of opinions and indicators, from antipathy for membership of the EU, concerns about loneliness and fear of unemployment to a declining birth rate, and an increasing number of academics leaving the country.
The first instalment of a two part look at Catherine de’ Medici’s storied life, running from her birth into one of the most powerful families in Europe, to a precarious position as an unpopular Dauphine of France, pleading her fate with her father-in-law Francis 1st.
The story of a murder at an apartment block marketed as a luxury development when it opened in 1968, but now “like an inverse of Dante’s layers of hell”. The building is disintegrating, but houses a large and diverse population, including an estimated 50 drug dealers. This is a story about the changes in fortune in the Italian economy, urban development, immigration, integration, and failing public infrastructure.
A biographer of Machiavelli looks to Florentine history for lessons in the battle to preserve the rule of law in the face of tyranny.
A new entry in a series that profiles “badass world-historical women of centuries past.” Joanna of Naples had an extraordinary life even by the standards of the 14th century’s topsy-turvy geopolitics. Escape from her castle by night, papal trials, attacks on her kingdom by her own relations and four husbands of varying quality all feature in this engaging portrait.
A detailed look at the rise of Italy’s Interior Minister (and some say de facto leader) Matteo Salvini.
The tale of the prosecutor and witnesses who took on the corrosive power of the ÕNdrangheta. http://bit.ly/newyorker-mafia