Suggestions for a high school tour to Italy
Discover essential books for a high school tour to Italy, blending art, history, and fiction. From Vasari's Lives of the Artists to Eco's The Name of the Rose, this curated list sparks curiosity before you travel.
Book
The Agony and the Ecstasy
by Irving Stone
A novel of Michelangelo who was the creator of David, painter of the Sistine ceiling, and architect of the dome of St. Peter's.
Book
The Lives of the Artists
by Giorgio Vasari
Packed with facts, attributions, and entertaining anecdotes about his contemporaries, Vasari's collection of biographical accounts also presents a highly influential theory of the development of Renaissance art. Beginning with Cimabue and Giotto, who represent the infancy of art, Vasari considers the period of youthful vigour, shaped by Donatello, Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, and Masaccio, before discussing the mature period of perfection, dominated by the titanic figures of Leonardo, Raphael, and Michelangelo. This specially commissioned translation contains thirty-six of the most important lives as well as an introduction and explanatory notes. - ;Packed with facts, attributions, and entertaining anecdotes about his contemporaries, Vasari's collection of biographical accounts also presents a highly influential theory of the development of Renaissance art. Beginning with Cimabue and Giotto, who represent the infancy of art, Vasari considers the period of youthful vigour, shaped by Donatello, Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, and Masaccio, before discussing the mature period of perfection, dominated by the titanic figures of Leonardo, Raphael, and Michelangelo. This specially commissioned translation contains thirty-six of the most important lives as well as an introduction and explanatory notes. - ;Includes: Cimabue; Giotto; Duccio; Luca della Robbia; Paolo Uccello; Ghiberti; Masaccio; Filippo Brunelleschi; Donatello; Piero della Francesca; Fra Angelico; Fra Filippo Lippi; Domenico Ghirlandaio; Sandro Botticelli; Andrea del Verrocchio; Mantegna; Leonardo da Vinci; Giorgione; Raphael; Titian; Michelangelo -
Book
The Name of the Rose
by Umberto Eco
In 1327, finding his sensitive mission at an Italian abbey further complicated by seven bizarre deaths, Brother William of Baskerville turns detective.
Book
The Leopard
by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
A classic of modern fiction. Set in the 1860s, THE LEOPARD is the spellbinding story of a decadent, dying Sicilian aristocracy threatened by the approaching forces of democracy and revolution.
