Gore and the Glorious Bird
Gore Vidal and Tennessee Williams blossomed as friends when the two traveled in Italy.
Turner’s Venice
The British master saw many London sunsets, but those in Venice stuck with him for a lifetime.
Pope and presidents
Among recent popes, John Paul II got to know U.S. presidents best, but the relationships differed.
No love lost
Pillars of Renaissance art, Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo were anything but bosom buddies.
Death in Venice
For Richard Wagner, Venice was shelter from the storm, too often of his own making.
The Prisons
Giovanni Battista Piranesi's terrifying vision of imagined prisons dug into the bowels of Rome.
Father of invention
Italian Antonio Meucci is overlooked in a telephone-invention saga focused on Alexander Graham Bell.
Roman housewife
For Audrey Hepburn, stardom came second to running her Rome household.
Blaze of glory
How a bandit with a code, Salvatore Giuliano, came to define rebellion in postwar Sicily.
The historian
The legacy of Oriana Fallaci grows more powerful as media questioning softens.
Halcyon days
Once upon a time, a First Lady took an Amalfi Coast vacation — and the world wanted pictures.