The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie TV - Italy: The Cold War Files TV - Robert Bartlett TV - Empires Special: Medici TV - Alastair Sooke TV - This Green and Pleasant Land: The Story of British Landscape Painting TV - Mussolini: The Rise of Italian Fascism TV - Galeazzo Ciarno - Noam Chomsky - James Miller - Benito Mussolini - Thomas Lamont - David Schmitz - Mark Franchetti - Andrew Camilleri - Timeshift: Italian Noir: The Story of Italian Crime Fiction TV - John Dickie & This World TV - Inside the Gangster Code TV - The Sopranos TV - Romanzo Criminale TV - Mafia Empire TV - Organised Crime TV - Corleone TV - First World War TV - World War II TV - The World at War TV - Jonathan Dimbleby TV - World War II: The Apocalypse TV - World War II in Colour TV - The Nazis: A Warning From History TV - Nazi Underworld TV - Vincenzo Vinciguerra - Timewatch Operation Gladio TV - Aldo Moro - Daniele Ganser - Licio Gelli - Political Assassinations: Death in Rome TV - Jonathan Levy - 7/7 The Big Picture - Frontline TV - Francesco da Mosto TV - Thomas Paine - Rome: Power and Glory TV - Nostradamus - Percy Bysshe Shelley - Edward Blishen - Guiseppe Verdi - Count Cavour - Mark Twain - Bertrand Russell - Monica Bellucci - Lord Byron - Hitler’s Henchmen TV - Margaret Mountford - Andrew Wallace-Hadrill TV - Pompeii: The Last Day TV - Good Italy Bad Italy TV - Italy Unpacked TV - Destination Truth TV - Robin Lane Fox TV - Secrets of Florence TV - John Lydon - Joseph Addison - Conspiracy: Cold War Files TV - Pliney the Elder TV - The Italian Americans TV - Jonathan Meades TV - The Gardens of Pompeii TV - Italy’s Invisible Cities TV - Evolution of Evil TV - Secrets of War TV - Jamies Theakston’s Forbidden History TV - Charles Wheeler: The Road to War TV - Rome Revealed TV - The Roman Empire: Grandeur & Decadence TV - Mary Beard TV - Dictators’ Rulebook TV - Rise of the Nazis: The Downfall TV - WWII: Countdown to Victory TV - Years of Lead: An Italian Conspiracy 2022 - Nazis in the CIA TV -
The man actually responsible for the Petiano bombing was Vincenzo Cinciguerra. He was a member of right-wing terrorist groups … Once his guilt had been established and he was no longer protected by the security services, Cinciguerra became very candid about how Gladio operated. 7/7: Seeds of Destruction, Vimeo 2:27:25
A series of trials ensued in Italy. It wasn’t until 1995, 15 years after the bombing, that a conclusive verdict was reached. 2 members of a neo-fascist group were convicted of the [Bologna] bombing. Also convicted for diverting the investigation were 2 Italian intelligence agents who were members of the P2 Masonic lodge. The grandmaster of that lodge, Licio Gelli, was also convicted for conspiring to divert the investigation. It became clear that P2 was not just a Masonic Order but a CIA-funded parallel government. The list of members of the lodge was found in a raid on Licio Gelli’s house in 1981. Among the 962 names were those of the heads of all 3 Intelligence Services, 48 MPs, industrialists, bankers, media moguls, journalists, civil servants, judges, military officials, and Silvio Berlusconi. ibid.
Garibaldi united Italy into one country. Garibaldi was as great in his day as Mussolini is in ours. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie II starring Geraldine McEwan & Amanda Kirby & Lynsey Baxter & Vivienne Ross et al, Brodie to class, ITV 1978
Many believe that the CIA continued to meddle in Italian elections for decades, making sure Italy was always governed by a right of centre government. But some historians claim that wasn’t the end of interference in Italian politics. They claim that after three decades of anti-communist parties in Italy, the US along with Nato went far further, brutally murdering Italy’s popular prime minister Aldo Moro. Conspiracy s1e6: The Cold War Files, Channel 5 2015
But what the Normans were really hungry for was territory and the fertile plains of southern Italy must have presented a tempting site. Southern Italy was a promised land ripe for the picking. Professor Robert Bartlett, The Normans III: Normans of the South, BBC 2010
Muslim Sicily was a difficult island to conquer. ibid.
Florence 1389: a boy is baptised into a Medieval world ... His name was Cosimo de’ Medici. From humble beginnings his dynasty would seek power and influence and not stop until they had secured the papacy itself. Empires Special: Medici: Godfathers of the Renaissance I: Birth of a Dynasty, PBS 2004
Florence was also a cauldron of creativity. ibid.
The Medici would protect and pay for the greatest artists and thinkers of their age: Michelangelo et al. ibid.
The Medici: godfathers of the Renaissance. ibid.
Cosimo de’ Medici and his friends were searching for lost secrets from the ancient world. ibid.
The Medici bank was a small-scale operation. ibid.
[Filippo] Brunelleschi ... a maverick architect ... Brunelleschi’s vision would resurrect forgotten concepts of the past. ibid.
He would have to re-write the rules of Western architecture. ibid.
Brunelleschi also tried to escape the limitations of his age. ibid.
Cosimo was accused of treason against the city and her people. ibid.
Money talked and Cosimo walked. ibid.
The Medici were back in business. ibid.
The Council brought together the greatest mix of thinkers, artists, merchants, and churchmen that the world had ever seen. ibid.
By the mid-15th century the Medici family had fought their way to power in Florence. They had dictated the taste of the city, presiding over a revolution in Western culture – the Renaissance. Empires Special: Medici: Godfathers of the Renaissance II: The Magnificent Medici
The greatest artists the world had ever seen. ibid.
Behind the glory lay violence. ibid.
Lorenzo worked to protect the future of the Medici dynasty. ibid.
He was an artist who would take the world apart ... Leonardo da Vinci. ibid.
Lorenzo decided to bring Michelangelo into his family. ibid.
Under Lorenzo, Florence had reached new heights of culture and sophistication. ibid.
[Sandro] Botticelli ... hurled his own paintings into the flames ... The Bonfire of the Vanities. ibid.
For over a century one family had run the city of Florence. They had carved their name into the heart of the Florentine Renaissance – the Medici. But at the height of their success they had been toppled by a sudden revolution. Now two cousins reigned as brothers. Empires Special: Medici: Godfathers of the Renaissance III: The Medici Popes
Fifteen years earlier the sculptor had been adopted into the greatest family in Florence. Michelangelo had moved in with the Medici. ibid.
A bloody civil war exploded in the streets of Florence. ibid.
They had begun to procure corpses from the city’s hospitals for ‘private research’. The pioneer of this controversial method was the city’s most talked about personality – Leonardo da Vinci. ibid.
Machiavelli was a single minded patriot determined to defend the city from Medici dictatorship. ibid.
From now on Cardinal Giovanni de Medici would be known as ... Pope Leo X ... Within just one year of his extravagant life-style he had emptied the papal coffers. Soon Leo X owed money to every bank in Rome. Behind the scenes Julio was pawning the papal jewels. So Leo turned to the source of income only available to the Pope himself – the sale of forgiveness. ibid.
Luther’s ninety-five thesis was an indictment on the sale of salvation. And a direct attack on the pope. ibid.
The Bull of Excommunication condemned Luther to Hell. ibid.
Within two years Giulio de Medici was crowned Pope Clement VII. ibid.
Enemies of the Medici in Florence were already running riot. The rioters struck without discrimination. ibid.
The corrupt, disastrous reign of the Medici popes was over. ibid.