21 December

Strife-torn Rome turns to Vespasian

Elevation of military leader ends Year of Four Emperors

The ninth Roman emperor, Vespasian, began his 10-year rule on this day in 69AD, ending a period of civil war that brought the death of Nero and encompassed a series of short-lived administrations that became known as the Year of the Four Emperors.  Nero committed suicide in June 68 AD, having lost the support of the Praetorian Guard and been declared an enemy of the state by the Senate.  However, his successor, Galba, after initially having the support of the Praetorian Guard, quickly became unpopular.  On his march to Rome, he imposed heavy fines on or vengefully destroyed towns that did not declare their immediate allegiance to him and then refused to pay the bonuses he had promised the soldiers who had supported his elevation to power.  After he then had several senators and officials executed without trial on suspicion of conspiracy, the Germanic legions openly revolted. Read more…

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Moira Orfei - circus owner and actress

‘Queen of the Big Top’ became cultural icon

Moira Orfei, an entertainer regarded as the Queen of the Italian circus and an actress who starred in more than 40 films, was born on this day in 1931 in Codroipo, a town in Friuli-Venezia Giulia about 25km (16 miles) southwest of Udine.  She had a trademark look that became so recognisable that advertising posters for the Moira Orfei Circus, which she founded in 1961 with her new husband, the circus acrobat and animal trainer Walter Nones, carried simply her face and the name 'Moira'. As a young woman, she was a strikingly glamorous Hollywood-style beauty but in later years she took to wearing heavy make-up, dark eye-liner and bright lipstick, topped off with her bouffant hair gathered up in a way that resembled a turban.  Her camped-up appearance made her an unlikely icon for Italy’s gay community.  Read more…

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Giovanni Boccaccio – writer and scholar

Renaissance humanist who changed literature

One of the most important literary figures of the 14th century in Italy, Giovanni Boccaccio, died on this day in 1375 in Certaldo in Tuscany.  The greatest prose writer of his time in Europe, Boccaccio is still remembered as the writer of The Decameron, a collection of short stories and poetry, which influenced not only Italian literary development but that of the rest of Europe as well, including Geoffrey Chaucer in England and Miguel de Cervantes in Spain.  With the writers Dante Alighieri (Dante) and Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch), Boccaccio is considered one of the three most important figures in the history of Italian literature. Along with Petrarch, he raised vernacular literature to the level and status of the classics of antiquity.  Boccaccio is thought to have been born in about 1313.  He was the son of a merchant in Florence.  Read more…

Masaccio – Renaissance artist

Innovative painter had brief but brilliant career

The 15th century artist Masaccio was born on this day in 1401 in Tuscany.  He is now judged to have been the first truly great painter of the early Renaissance in Italy because of his skill at painting lifelike figures and his use of perspective.  Christened Tommaso di Ser Giovanni di Simone, the artist came into the world in a small town near Arezzo, which is now known as San Giovanni Valdarno.  Little is known about his early life but it is likely he would have moved to Florence to be apprenticed to an established artist while still young.  The first evidence of him definitely being in the city was when he joined the painters’ guild in Florence in 1422.  The name Masaccio derives from Maso, a shortened form of his first name, Tommaso. Maso has become Masaccio, meaning ‘clumsy or messy Maso’. But it may just have been given to him to distinguish him from his contemporary, Masolino Da Panicale.  Read more…

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Italo Marchioni - ice cream maker

Italian-American inventor of the waffle cone

Italo Marchioni, the ice cream manufacturer credited by many as the inventor of the ice cream cone, was born in the tiny mountain hamlet of Peaio in northern Veneto on this day in 1868.  Marchioni learned his skills in Italy, where gelato was well established as a popular treat, but in common with so many Italians during what were tough economic times in the late 19th century he took the bold step of emigrating to the United States in 1890.  Records suggest his first American home was in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and that it was there that he married Elvira De Lorenzo in 1893. Marchioni - by then known by his Americanised name of Marchiony - later settled in Hoboken, a city in New Jersey with a strong pull for Italian immigrants that retains an Italian flavour to this day, with almost a quarter of the area’s population thought to have Italian roots.  Read more…

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Lorenzo Perosi - priest and composer

Puccini contemporary chose sacred music over opera

Don Lorenzo Perosi, a brilliant composer of sacred music who was musical director of the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican for almost half a century, was born on this day in 1872 in the city of Tortona in Piedmont.  A devoutly religious man who was ordained as a priest at the age of 22, Perosi was a contemporary of Giacomo Puccini and Pietro Mascagni, both of whom he counted as close friends, but was the only member of the so-called Giovane Scuola of late 19th century and early 20th century composers who did not write opera.  Instead, he concentrated entirely on church music and was particularly noted for his large-scale oratorios, for which he enjoyed international fame.  Unlike Puccini and Mascagni, or others from the Giovane Scuola such as Ruggero Leoncavallo, Umberto Giordano and Francesco Cilea, Perosi's work has not endured enough for him to be well known today.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Vespasian, by Barbara Levick

From a pre-eminent biographer in the field, this volume examines the life and times of the emperor Vespasian and challenges the validity of his perennial good reputation and universally acknowledged achievements. Levick examines how this plebeian and uncharismatic emperor restored peace and confidence to Rome and ensured a smooth succession, how he coped with the military, political and economic problems of his reign, and his evaluation of the solutions to these problems, before she finally examines his posthumous reputation.  Now updated to take account of the past 15 years of scholarship, and with a new chapter on literature under the Flavians, Vespasian is a fascinating study for students of Roman history and the general classical enthusiast alike.

Barbara Levick is Fellow and Tutor Emeritus, St. Hilda’s College, Oxford. She has published extensively on Roman history, with titles including Tiberius the Politician, The Government of the Roman Empire, Julia Domna: Syrian Empress and Augustus: Image and Substance. 

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20 December

NEW - Life is Beautiful - Oscar-winning movie

Roberto Benigni masterpiece released in Italy

The triple Oscar-winning movie La Vita è Bella, which became better known by its English title Life is Beautiful, made its debut in front of Italian cinema audiences on this day in 1997.  Co-written, directed and starring the Tuscany-born actor Roberto Benigni, the film was released in the United States in October 1998 and in the United Kingdom in February 1999. At the Academy Awards in March 1999, it received nominations in seven categories, winning three of them, including Best Actor for Benigni, who joined Anna Magnani and Sophia Loren as the only Italians to win Oscars in the two leading actor categories.  Life is Beautiful, which played to English-language audiences in the original Italian but with English subtitles, also picked up the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, while composer Nicola Piovani won for Best Original Score.  Read more…

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Francesco Bentivegna – military leader

Patriotic baron executed in what was to become Mafia heartland

Baron Francesco Bentivegna, a Sicilian patriot, died on this day at Mezzojuso in Sicily in 1856.  Bentivegna led revolts against the Bourbon rulers of the island in the mid 19th century and became renowned for his bravery.  He was born in Corleone near Palermo - a modern day Mafia stronghold - and it is believed his parents originally intended him for the church.  But after leading his first revolt against the Bourbons in 1848 in Palermo he was appointed military governor of the Corleone district as a reward.  Within 16 months the Bourbon soldiers had reoccupied Palermo and offered all the rebels an amnesty if they pledged loyalty to their French rulers.  Bentivegna refused and again attempted to launch a coup, which was unsuccessful. Afterwards he had to live as a wanted fugitive, while continuing to try to organise revolutionaries.  Read more…

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Giuliana Sgrena – journalist

War reporter who survived kidnapping in Iraq

The journalist Giuliana Sgrena, a war correspondent for an Italian newspaper who was kidnapped by insurgents while reporting the 2003 invasion of Iraq, was born on this day in 1948 in Masera, a village in Piedmont.  Sgrena, who was covering the conflict for the Rome daily Il Manifesto and the weekly German news magazine Die Welt, was seized outside Baghdad University on February 4, 2005.  During her 28 days in captivity, she was forced to appear in a video pleading that the demands of her abductors – the withdrawal of the 2,400 Italian troops from the multi-national force in Iraq – be met.  Those demands were rejected but the Italian authorities allegedly negotiated a $6 million payment to secure Sgrena’s release.  She was rescued by two Italian intelligence officers on March 4 only then to come under fire from United States forces. Read more…

Aulus Vitellius - Roman emperor

Brief reign marked by gluttony and ineptitude

Aulus Vitellius, the third leader of Rome in the so-called Year of the Four Emperors, who history remembers mainly as a glutton, drunkard and gambler, died on this day in 69AD in Rome.  Captured by supporters of his successor, Vespasian, he was dragged through the streets of the capital to the Scalae Gemoniae - the Gemonian Stairs - a flight of steps leading from the Capitoline Hill to the Forum that acquired a symbolic identity as a place of execution, where he was beaten to death.  Vitellius had been emperor for just eight months, his death bringing to an end a period of civil war and the chaos of three short-lived administrations before Vespasian’s accession restored order. Born in 15AD in Nuceria Alfaterna - now the Campanian town of Nocera Superiore - Vitellius was the son of Lucius Vitellius, a censor in the employ of the emperor Claudius. Read more…

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Gigliola Cinquetti - singer and TV presenter

Eurovision win at 16 launched successful career

Gigliola Cinquetti, who was the first Italian to win the Eurovision Song Contest, was born on this day in 1947 in Verona.  She took the prize in Copenhagen in 1964 with Non ho l'età (I'm Not Old Enough), with music composed by Nicola Salerno and lyrics by Mario Panzeri.  Just 16 years old at the time, she scored an overwhelming victory, gaining 49 points from the judges. The next best song among 16 contenders, which was the United Kingdom entry I Love the Little Things, sung by Matt Monro, polled just 17 points.  Non ho l'età became a big hit, selling more than four million copies and even spending 17 weeks in the UK singles chart, where songs in foreign languages did not traditionally do well. It had already won Italy's prestigious Sanremo Music Festival, which served as the qualifying competition for Eurovision at that time.  Read more…

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San Leonardo da Porto Maurizio

Franciscan monk canonised in 1867

San Leonardo da Porto Maurizio, whose feast day is celebrated on November 27 each year, was born Paolo Gerolamo Casanova on this day in 1676 in Porto Maurizio, which is now part of the port city of Imperia in Liguria.  Leonardo recovered from a serious illness developed soon after he became a priest and devoted the remaining 43 years of his life to preaching retreats and parish missions throughout Italy.  He was one of the main propagators of the Catholic rite of Via Crucis - the Way of the Cross - and established Stations of the Cross - reconstructions in paintings or sculpture of Christ’s journey to the cross - at more than 500 locations. He also set up numerous ritiri - houses of recollection.  Leonardo was a charismatic preacher who found favour with Popes Clement XII and Benedict XIV, who helped him spread his missions. Read more…

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Book of the Day: 50 Oscar Nights: Iconic Stars and Filmmakers on Their Career-Defining Wins, by Dave Karger

For almost a century, movie fans have been riveted by the Academy Awards and the stars who have won Oscars. 50 Oscar Nights takes readers behind the scenes of Hollywood's most storied awards show through new and exclusive interviews with dozens of A-list actors, filmmakers, and craftspeople spanning sixty years of the Oscars. Here these artists reflect on their winning work and how the entire experience impacted their life. Some interviews bring to light fun stories such as why Hilary Swank decided to celebrate her Academy Award at the Astro Burger in West Hollywood, or why Elton John was convinced he won his Best Original Song award for the wrong tune. Other interviews illuminate why for some winners, such as Julia Roberts, John Legend, and Octavia Spencer, the day remains a life highlight to be treasured, while for Marlee Matlin, Mira Sorvino, and Barry Jenkins, complex emotions cloud what most think would be a purely celebratory moment.  Filled with more than 150 photos of red-carpet moments, emotional acceptances, and after-party play, 50 Oscar Nights is both a stunning record of cinema glamour and a must-read for any movie lover.

Dave Karger is an award-winning TV host, interviewer, journalist, and film expert. He is a host on Turner Classic Movies and has been the Oscars expert on NBC’s TODAY since 2000.

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Life is Beautiful - Oscar-winning movie

Roberto Benigni masterpiece released in Italy

Life is Beautiful is remembered as
a modern cinematic masterpiece

The triple Oscar-winning movie La Vita è Bella, which became better known by its English title Life is Beautiful, made its debut in front of Italian cinema audiences on this day in 1997.

Co-written, directed and starring the Tuscany-born actor Roberto Benigni, the film was released in the United States in October 1998 and in the United Kingdom in February 1999. 

At the Academy Awards in March 1999, it received nominations in seven categories, winning three of them, including Best Actor for Benigni, who joined Anna Magnani and Sophia Loren as the only Italians to win Oscars in the two leading actor categories.

Life is Beautiful, which played to English-language audiences in the original Italian but with English subtitles, also picked up the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, while composer Nicola Piovani won for Best Original Score.

In total, the film won 22 awards at film festivals around the world, including the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival, a BAFTA for Benigni as Best Actor in a Leading Role, and no fewer than nine David di Donatello awards, considered to be the Italian equivalent of the Oscars.

These included Best Cinematography for Tonino Delli Colli, his fourth David di Donatello in a career spanning more than 50 years that saw him work extensively with the writer and director Pier Paolo Pasolini as well as Sergio Leone, Federico Fellini and many other greats of Italian cinema history.

Life is Beautiful was marketed as a comedy-drama, although as the story of an Italian-Jewish bookshop owner in Arezzo seized and taken to a concentration camp by the Nazis, along with his wife and four-year-old son, its subject matter is hardly light-hearted.

The comedy is created by the sense of fun and jollity in Benigni’s character, Guido, as he woos his future wife, Dora - played by Nicoletta Braschi, who is married to Benigni in real life - during the first part of the story.

Roberto Benigni's comic acting talent came
to the fore in his portrayal of Guido

It is Guido’s sense of humour that underpins the drama of the second part of the film, that follows the Nazi occupation of northern Italy and forced deportations, in which Guido goes to extraordinary lengths to shield his son, Giosuè, portrayed by Giorgio Cantarini, from the true horror that confronts them.  

Guido somehow convinces Giosuè that their stay at the camp is actually a complicated game in which he must perform different tasks, earning points in the process, and that the first to reach 1,000 points wins the prize of a tank. He is told that if he cries, pines for his mother - who is forced to stay in another part of the camp - or says that he is hungry, he will lose points, while quiet boys who hide from the guards earn extra points.

He manages to maintain the pretence for his son’s sake almost to the point of liberation by the Allies, with Giosuè believing that the Sherman tank that leads a unit of American soldiers into the camp to free the prisoners is the prize his father promised he would win.

Despite its difficult storyline, Life is Beautiful was enormously successful, winning public acclaim as well as the approval of critics. Produced on a budget of €12.8 million (approx $15 million, £11 million), it achieved gross earnings of $230.1 million (€196 million, £173 million), which made it one of the highest grossing foreign language films in cinema history.

Nicoletta Braschi starred
opposite her husband

Benigni, whose co-author was the highly respected screenwriter Vincenzo Cerami, says the film was partially inspired by the book In the End, I Beat Hitler, a memoir suffused with dark humour by Italian Auschwitz survivor Rubino Romeo Salmonì, and by the experiences of Benigni's own father, who spent two years in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp during World War II.

He reportedly based the names of the protagonists on Dora De Giovanni and Guido Vittoriano Basile, the aunt and uncle of Nicoletta Braschi. Guido was arrested for anti-fascist activities during World War II and subsequently died in the Mauthausen concentration camp.

Benigni, the first to win the Oscar for Best Actor with a performance in a foreign language, became almost a national hero in Italy, his own exuberance at the Academy Awards ceremony, where he climbed over the back of seats to receive the award on stage from screen icon Loren, attracting almost as much attention as the film itself.

In the context of Italian cinema history, Life is Beautiful has been placed by some commentators alongside Vittorio De Sica’s 1948 neorealist classic Bicycle Thieves and Fellini’s 1960 masterpiece La dolce vita among films that have reshaped international perceptions of Italian big-screen artistry.

Arezzo's famously sloping main square, Piazza Grande,
featured in several scenes in Life is Beautiful

Travel tip:

Much of the location shooting in the first part of Life is Beautiful took place in Arezzo, the city in Tuscany. Situated at the confluence of four valleys - Tiberina, Casentino, Valdarno and Valdichiana – its medieval centre suffered massive damage during the Second World War but a remarkable number of monuments, churches and museums survived, and the city recovered to be one of the most prosperous in Tuscany. Arezzo’s main sights include the Basilica di San Francesco, with its beautiful frescoes by Piero della Francesca, the central Piazza Grande, with its sloping pavement in red brick and the setting for several scenes, the Medici Fortress, the duomo and a Roman amphitheatre.  Arezzo’s original duomo was built on the nearby Pionta Hill, over the burial place of Donatus of Arezzo, who was martyred in 363. In 1203 Pope Innocent III had the cathedral - dedicated to Saints Donato and Pietro - moved within the city's walls, to the current site in another elevated position a short walk from Piazza Grande.  The construction of the current structure started in 1278 and continued in phases until 1511, although the façade visible today, designed by Dante Viviani, was not completed until 1914, replacing one left unfinished in the 15th century.  The interior contains several notable artworks, including a relief by Donatello, entitled Baptism of Christ, and a cenotaph to Guido Tarlati, lord of Arezzo until 1327, said to be designed by Giotto, near to which is Piero della Francesca's Mary Magdalene.  The wooden choir of the Grand Chapel was designed by Giorgio Vasari.

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The colonnaded front of Terni's main church,
the Cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta

Travel tip:

The concentration camp scenes in Life is Beautiful were filmed mainly at an abandoned factory, adapted for the purpose, near the city of Terni in Umbria, about 82km (49 miles) south of the region’s capital, Perugia. Terni, originally a Roman settlement, of which some remains still exist, including the Cascata delle Marmore, a spectacular 165-metre man-made waterfall. In the medieval period, Terni became associated with Saint Valentine, a former bishop of Terni martyred by the Romans, probably in the fourth century. He was adopted as Terni’s patron saint, his ashes kept in an urn under the main altar of the present Basilica di San Valentino, in Viale Papa Zaccaria, giving rise to Terni becoming known as the City of Love.  Terni’s main church, though, is the Cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta, with its wide portico along the front and eight statues of former bishops of Terni, including the aforementioned San Valentino. In the 19th and 20th centuries, Terni developed into a major steel-producing hub and today the city balances its industrial character with cultural heritage and natural attractions, making it both a working city and a tourist destination.  

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More reading:

How Life is Beautiful rocketed Roberto Benigni to fame

The five-year-old who captivated audiences with his portrayal of Giosuè

A real-life Holocaust survivor spared while her family perished 

Also on this day:

69: The death of Roman emperor Aulus Vitellius

1676: The birth of San Leonardo da Porto Maurizio

1856: The death of Sicilian patriot Francesco Bentivegna

1947: The birth of singer and TV presenter Gigliola Cinquetti

1948: The birth of journalist Giuliana Sgrena

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19 December

Italo Svevo - writer

Author who became the main character in somebody else’s novel

The novelist Italo Svevo was born Aron Ettore Schmitz on this day in 1861 in Trieste, which was then part of the Austrian Empire.  Schmitz took on the pseudonym, Italo Svevo, after writing his novel La Coscienza di Zeno (Zeno’s Conscience).  The novelist himself then became the inspiration for a fictional protagonist in a book by someone else. The celebrated Irish writer James Joyce, who was working in Trieste at the time, modelled the main character in Ulysses, Leopold Bloom, on his friend Svevo.  Svevo’s own novel, which revealed his deep interest in the theories of Sigmund Freud, received little interest at the time and might have sunk without trace if it had not been for the encouragement of Joyce, who regarded him as a neglected writer. Joyce helped Svevo get the novel translated into French and, after the translated version was highly praised, the Italian critics discovered it.  Read more…

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Gianni Brera - football journalist

Outspoken writer who embellished Italian language

Italy's football world lost one of its most influential personalities on this day in 1992 when a car crash near the town of Codogno in Lombardy claimed the life of the journalist Gianni Brera.  Brera, who was 73, had enjoyed a long and often controversial career in which his writing was famous not only for its literary quality but for his outspoken views.  He could be savage in his criticisms of players and allowed reputations to count for nothing.  His long-running feud with Gianni Rivera, the AC Milan midfielder regarded by many as one of Italian football's all-time greats, in some ways defined his career.  Yet the positions he occupied in Italian football journalism gained him enormous respect.  He rose to be editor-in-chief of La Gazzetta dello Sport, Italy's biggest sports newspaper, before he was 30 and went on to write for Il Giorno, Il Giornale and La Repubblica. Read more…

Alberto Tomba – Italy’s greatest skier

Playboy showman who won three Olympic golds

Italy’s greatest alpine ski racer, Alberto Tomba, was born on this day in 1966 in San Lazzaro di Savena, a town in Emilia-Romagna that now forms part of the metropolitan city of Bologna.  Tomba – popularly known as ‘Tomba la Bomba’ – won three Olympic gold medals, two World Championships and won no fewer than nine titles in 13 World Cup seasons, between 1986 and 1998.  The only other Italian Alpine skiers with comparable records are Gustav Thoni, who won two Olympic golds and four World Championships in the 1970s, and Deborah Compagnoni, who won three golds at both the Olympics and the World Championships between 1992 and 1998.  Thoni would later be a member of Tomba’s coaching team.  Tomba had showmanship to match his talent on the slopes.  Read more…

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Giulio Ricordi - music publisher

Entrepreneur who ‘discovered’ the great Giacomo Puccini 

Giulio Ricordi, who ran the Casa Ricordi publishing house during its peak years in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and launched the career of the brilliant opera composer Giacomo Puccini, was born on this day in 1840 in Milan.  Casa Ricordi was founded by Giulio’s grandfather Giovanni in 1808 and remained in the family when Giovanni died in 1853 and his son, Tito - Giulio's father - took the helm.  Giulio became involved in 1863 after a distinguished military career in the special infantry corps known as the Bersaglieri. He had enrolled as a volunteer with the outbreak of the Second Italian War of Independence in 1859. He took part in the Siege of Gaeta and, after receiving a medal for military valour, was promoted to lieutenant.  During breaks in military activity, Giulio, a keen composer from an early age under the pseudonym of Jules Burgmein, wrote pieces of music. Read more…

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Book of the Day: Ulysses, by James Joyce

Widely regarded as one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century, Ulysses is James Joyce’s towering modernist masterpiece, a bold, richly layered reimagining of Homer’s Odyssey set over the course of a single day in Dublin.  First published in its entirety in 1922, Ulysses follows the thoughts, encounters, and inner lives of three main characters, Leopold Bloom, Stephen Dedalus, and Molly Bloom, as they navigate the ordinary yet deeply symbolic events of 16th June 1904. Through its stream-of-consciousness narrative, linguistic experimentation, and profound psychological insight, Joyce reshaped the possibilities of fiction and redefined the novel for generations to come.  Controversial in its time for both style and subject matter, Ulysses was initially banned in several countries, yet has since come to be celebrated for its groundbreaking artistry and emotional depth. A cornerstone of modern literature, Ulysses is a challenging, exhilarating, and essential read.  

James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde and is regarded as one of the most influential and important authors of the 20th century. Best known for Ulysses, Joyce’s other well-known works are the short-story collection Dubliners (1914), and the novels A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) and Finnegans Wake (1939). 

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