This book documents the colorful life the Berensons led at I Tatti, the rich intellectual atmosphere they fostered there, and the spirit that continues and is nurtured by the Harvard Center.

Situated in the Val d'Orcia, a wide valley in southeastern Tuscany, La Foce is run by Benedetta and Donata Origo, and is open to the public one day a week.".

A biography.

A biography of the remarkable woman whose bestselling Mythology has introduced millions of readers to the classical world Edith Hamilton (1867–1963) didn’t publish her first book until she was sixty-two. But over the next three decades, this former headmistress would become the twentieth century’s most famous interpreter of the classical world. Today, Hamilton’s Mythology (1942) remains the standard version of ancient tales and sells tens of thousands of copies a year. During the Cold War, her influence even extended to politics, as she argued that postwar America could learn from the fate of Athens after its victory in the Persian Wars. In American Classicist, Victoria Houseman tells the fascinating life story of a remarkable classicist whose ideas were shaped by—and aspired to shape—her times. Hamilton studied Latin and Greek from an early age, earned a BA and MA at Bryn Mawr College, and ran a girls’ prep school for twenty-six years. After retiring, she turned to writing and began a relationship with the pianist and stockbroker Doris Fielding Reid. The two women were partners for more than forty years and entertained journalists, diplomats, and politicians in their Washington, D.C., house. Hamilton traveled extensively around the world, formed friendships with Gertrude Stein and Ezra Pound, and was made an honorary citizen of Athens. While Hamilton believed that the ancient Greeks represented the peak of world civilization, Houseman shows that this suffragist, pacifist, and anti-imperialist was far from an apologist for Western triumphalism. An absorbing narrative of an eventful life, American Classicist reveals how Hamilton’s Greek and Roman worlds held up a mirror to midcentury America even as she strived to convey a timeless beauty that continues to enthrall readers.

A Working Woman: The Remarkable Life of Ray Strachey is a traditional biography of a very untraditional woman. Tug-of-love child, Ward in Chancery, pampered schoolgirl, pioneer car driver, would-be electrical engineer, triumphant suffragist, political lobbyist, historian, biographer, novelist, journalist, broadcaster, well-known public figure, enthusiastic bricklayer, devoted mother, despairing stepmother, neglected wife: Ray Strachey was all of these and more. Bertrand Russell taught her maths; John Maynard Keynes fell (a little) in love with her; Virginia Woolf was over-awed by her; Millicent Garrett Fawcett and Nancy Astor depended on her. She inspired admiration in men and gratitude close to worship in women. As a close colleague of Millicent Fawcett, Ray Strachey played a major, non-violent, role in gaining British women the vote in 1918. She was one of the first female Parliamentary candidates, and became one of the leading feminists of the inter-war years, devoted in particular to improving employment opportunities for women. A brilliant political lobbyist with an extraordinary range of contacts, she was also a celebrated author, journalist and broadcaster, still remembered for her classic history of the Women’s Movement, The Cause (1928). She achieved all this as a working mother with overwhelming family responsibilities and an unusual (some said eccentric) private life. Lavishly illustrated, this first full account of Ray Strachey’s life is based on extensive research and draws heavily on her own lively and forthright comments on people and events. Interweaving her public roles with her challenging private life on the fringes of the Bloomsbury set, it features a host of well-known personalities, and introduces a new generation of readers to a fascinating though neglected fighter for women’s rights.

DIVProminent art historian looks at the birth of the art museum and contemplates its future as a public institution./div

An untold chapter in WWII history, the story of the corps of unlikely soldiers who saved Italy's most precious art and architecture from destruction.