Between salt water and holy water: a history of Southern Italy

Description

"Lucid, evocative and richly detailed."—Jay Parini, author of The Apprentice LoverBoth the Romans and the Greeks were attracted to the dramatically beautiful coasts and fertile plains of the region later known as "The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies." In fact, all myriad influences that shaped modern civilization in the Mediterranean come together in Southern Italy and Sicily. The world's first secular university was founded in Naples. Many of the elements of Italian culture as we now know it in the rest of the world—from comic opera to pizza—were born in the South. Art and music flourished there, as did progressive ideas about education, tolerance, and civic administration. Native Neopolitan and distinguished scholar Tommaso Astarita gives us a history both erudite and full of personality—from the freethinking, cosmopolitan King Frederick who conferred with Jewish and Muslim philosophers (and dared to meet with the Sultan) to the fisherman...