Stephen Gundle

Feminine beauty has been more associated with national cultural identity in Italy than in any other country. From the time of Dante and Petrarch, ideals of beauty have informed artists’ work. This intriguing and gloriously illustrated book investigates the many debates this topic has provoked in modern Italy.Radicals …

On 9 April 1953 an attractive twenty-one-year-old woman went missing from her family home in Rome. Thirty-six hours later her body was found washed up on a neglected beach at Tor Vaianica. Some said it was suicide; others, a tragic accident. Darker murmurs blamed her death on a drug-fuelled orgy that had gone horribly …