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Rating: 
Summary: Good but lacks many items and thinkers.
Review: Exactly the type of book I was looking for: 50 short articles on interesting italians down through history. Each article is 6-7 pages, just enough depth to be interesting without so much detail as to become boring. Lots of different topics like art, architecture, politics, science, and religion. Plus a very fast, light, easy to read writing style. Just the right length to read one article on my lunch break. If I could make one change, I would have paid extra for the addition of some photos and illustrations. Lots of the people covered in the book were painters, sculptors, builders, etc. and as they say 'a picture is worth a thousand words'. Bottom-line: definitely worth the money and the time spent reading.
Rating:
Summary: Dense, Limited and Misses the Mark
Review: I got this as a gift but found the style to be dense and at times irrelevant. The genius in chapter 22 is titled "Sigismondo Malatesta: The condottierre with a vision" huh ? And Chapter 28 is about a self-promoting pornographer called Aretino. huh? There are some good chapters on people like Da Vince and Galileo, but the book looks BACK into history and does not account for modern Italians in any real way except for a chapter on Fermi and one on Ferrari. But why Ferrari and why not Ferrucio Lamborghini or the founders of Fiat or Lancia. The book misses too many items and seems out of focus at times. An OK read at best.
Rating: 
Summary: Enjoyable introductory cultural history of Italy
Review: I would like to stress that Italian culture has influenced the World in more than 50 ways. However, I think to many, this very well organized and written volume will offer plenty of surprises. having lived in North America for some time now, I'm often surprised at how few people know who Enrico Fermi - who had a primary role in the development of the nuclear reactor - was or Marconi, let alone Volta,Torricelli and the fact that America is named after Amerigo Vespucci. The book is very well organized and arranged as a chronological encyclopedia, so that each chapter can stand alone and the reader can skim, skip and read about whichever genius he wishes without fear of missing relevant parts. I enjoyed the fact that lesser known figures are included like Castiglione or Giovanni della Casa - I name I learned at the age of 3 when my mother taught me to set the table according to his rules as described in the Galateo - and that the book paid tribute to Enzo Ferrari, even though the quintessential Italian car is an Alfa Romeo. I would have skipped Armani because most Italians prefer the more classic tailoring of Zegna, Corneliani, Brioni or Canali. I think its strongest sections inevitably involve the Renaissance period. I would have, tehrefore, preferred to see greater concentration in lesser known aspects of the enlightenment, philosophers like Giovan-Battista Vico and Benedetto Croce.
Rating: 
Summary: 50 Ways To Learn Your History!
Review: Right away with this book, in chapter one, you know that you are in for a treat. Regarding the Roman calendar, the authors write: "In those days, (circa 700 B.C.) January and February didn't yet exist- at least in the calendar- since Roman farmers didn't have much fieldwork to do in that dead part of the year after the last crops had been harvested and stored. After a two month hiatus, the new year began in March with preparation of the ground for the next season's crop."Did you already know that? Then try this one from the chapter on Julius Caesar: "When he saw Brutus draw his dagger, Caesar covered his head with his purple toga and fell to the floor. 'Kai su teknon,' he said in Greek ('You, too, my child- and not Shakespeare's Latin 'Et tu, Brute?') before being stabbed in the groin by the man whose mother, Servilia, had been his favorite mistress. The dictator died at the base of Pompey's statue, bleeding from twenty-three wounds. Cicero wrote that he had 'feasted his eyes on the just death of a tyrant.'""Kai su teknon".....now that is something I never knew!!I think the above excerpts give you a pretty accurate feel for how the book is written. It is broken up into 50 chapters, each approximately 7 pages or so. You may not be interested in every single chapter, but I only found my mind wandering in 1 or 2. If you're a fairly well-read person you may already be familiar with some of the material, but I guarantee you'll still learn a lot from this book. The authors have done a great job of bringing together a lot of material on very different subjects and turning it into something coherent. And in just 7 pages per topic they have managed to present the essence of something without "dumbing it down". Not an easy thing to do!Let me finish this review by giving you, fittingly, the final paragraph from the wonderful chapter on Michelangelo: "In one of his poems he describes himself as broken in body from his labors and cooped up in his tiny dark house with its thousand spiders and cobwebs and human excrement just outside the entrance. He wonders just what good it has done him to have created so many 'puppets' with his art, which has now left him 'so poor and old, a slave to others' whims,/ that if I die not soon I am undone.'"
Rating:
Summary: A remarkable achievement
Review: Sprezzatura is a remarkable achievement. D'Epiro's and Pinkowish's tour of two thousand years of Italian history demonstrates the same "effortless mastery" they chronicle in the fascinating men and women who people their book. The 50 essays are well chosen and cover the whole gamut of Italian genius - in art, in music, in science, in politics, in fashion...you name it. It's an excellent overview of Italy's contributions to world civilization that touches all the main bases. At the same time, it's a collection of self-contained essays, each a pleasure to read and each chock full of unexpected facts and anecdotes - the texture of history, or what I believe Ezra Pound called the "luminous detail." Bottom line: Sprezzatura is learned and well-written - never dull or pedantic. Sure, the essays aren't all of the same quality. Some are merely very good, while most are superb. For anyone who knows Italy - its people and its history - Sprezzatura is a must. I've lived there, I've studied there, and I love this book. For anyone who doesn't know Italy but wants to, Sprezzatura is a must too. I can think of no better introduction.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointed
Review: This book has good intentions, but I found it difficult to read, and too academic in style. This book is a collection of essays, and some are on unimpressive subjects. It's an ok read at best.
Rating:
Summary: Nothing's irrelevant for the serious student
Review: This book is indeed densely packed with details large and small about most of the major and some of the minor characters in the vast tapestry of Italian civilization. But surely not one of them can be irrelevant when the purpose of the volume is considered. We are promised an overview of the facility with which notable Italians, from Caesar to Lampedusa, have left their mark on the wider world of western culture, and that is exactly what the authors have provided. The facility of their prose nicely reflects the sprezzatura of their title. It conveys the numerous nuggets of information, all of which are needed to fill in the historical/biographical panorama, without strain and with clarity and precision. To have provided such an embarrassment of riches about so many diverse individuals, represents a very impressive work of sedulous research. The inclusion of some less celebrated characters, such as Malatesta and Aretino, D'Annunzio and Beccaria, as well as the giants we would expect to find, makes the work rather more interesting than otherwise. The reference to John Adams quoting Beccaria on the law during the Boston Massacre trial, is the kind of detail that one comes upon unexpectedly and relishes. The brief chapter on Italian makers of the violin and piano, and that on pioneer anatomists, are small but precious gems. If one comes to this well-researched and well-written book, looking for accurate detailed cameos of representative Italian genius, one will not be disappointed. It is a collection, not an exegesis, but no less valuable and enjoyable for that. In being such the book follows a noble if eccentric tradition that itself represents one of the accomplishments of the Italian scholar: the compilation of authorities on different topics, that was perhaps the most important vehicle for preserving what was known in academic and legal cirlces throughout the middle ages, and that made possible what we now call the Renaissance.
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