Recommended Viewing and Reading

Movies/TV

• Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy available on CNN, Hulu, YouTube TV, and Sling TV. This show premiered in early 2021 on CNN. Each episode highlights the food of a specific region of Italy. It’s a perfect combination of travel inspiration, cultural background, history, and food porn. There are two seasons of this incredible show, and despite winning an Emmy, CNN recently canceled the series. I’m anxiously awaiting an announcement on which network will pick up the series for season three.
• Roman Holiday with Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn. There isn’t anything profound about this lighthearted film. I just love to see how Rome looked back in the 1950’s. It’s also probably one of the only romantic comedies that I can actually stand. I love to visit filming sites from the movie including the apartment that really is located at Via Margutta 51.
• Medici: Masters of Florence (Season 1) and Medici: The Magnificent (Seasons 2 and 3) series on Netflix. This series is very loosely based on the lives of the famous Medici family members. While highly fictionalized, it’s interesting, action-packed, and provides a glimpse into some of the history that helped shape Florence. The series was actually filmed in Montepulciano because it still retains the look of a Renaissance Florence, complete with a mini Palazzo Vecchio.
• Simon Schama’s Power of Art (Episode 3- Caravaggio and Episode 4- Bernini) available on YouTube. Schama is the perfect guide for both art lovers and art novices. He masterfully details the personal, political, economic, and historic situations that contribute to the works of specific artists. If you’ve ever stood in a museum and wondered what was so important about the paintings on the wall, you will quickly learn that art history is much more than a work of art “looking pretty.”

Books

• Michelangelo: The Artist, the Man and his Times by William E. Wallace
• Leonardo Da Vinci by Walter Isaacson
• I, Claudius by and the sequel Claudius, the God by Robert Graves
• Monuments Men by Robert Edsel (The sequel is called Saving Italy. You don’t need to read these in order.)
• The Agony and the Ecstasy by Irving Stone
• Angels and Demons by Dan Brown (this book is especially fun to read while you are in Rome)