Joseph Luzzi

A true historical “detective story” full of insight about how we look at art―and the artists and eras that produced it....

Professor Joseph Luzzi, the director of Italian studies at Bard College and an award-winning author, offers a comprehensive look at Italian cinema from its inception in 1895 through its major periods....

In the aftermath of a heartbreaking tragedy, a scholar and writer uses Dante’s Divine Comedy to shepherd him through the dark wood of grief and mourning—a rich and emotionally resonant memoir of suffering, hope, love, and the power of literature to inspire and heal the most devastating loss...

How a Florentine orphanage rescued thousands of children and revolutionized childhood education amid the splendor of Renaissance art. The story begins with the abandonment of the newborn Agata Smeralda on February 5, 1445, in Florence’s Hospital of the Innocents, the first—but certainly not...