Enrich Your Travels with Longitude

We've got the classic, new and hard-to-find books and maps to help you get the most out of your adventures.

SIGN UP FOR

Longitude News

Get our monthly e-mail update

GET A

Catalog

• DESTINATIONS
  • Polar Regions
  • North America
  • Middle America
  • South America
  • Northern Europe
  • Southern Europe
  • Mediterranean
  • Middle East
  • Africa
  • Central & East Asia
  • South Asia
  • Southeast Asia
  • Australia & The Pacific
• FAVORITES

ITALY

Umbria & the Marches

READING AND TRAVEL GUIDE

• E-MAIL
• PRINT

Get the featured set of Essential Reading, our top picks of what to read, and get free shipping on anything else you order.

Item EXITL460. Buy these 4 items as a set for $62 including shipping, 15% off the retail price.
With free shipping on anything else you order.

ADD SET
TO BOOKBAG

Eyewitness Guide Umbria

by Eyewitness Guides

• GUIDEBOOK
• 2011
• FLEXI-BOUND
• 192 PAGES

A marvelously illustrated, compact guide to the culture, history and attractions of Umbria, organized geographically and especially helpful for its innovative site plans, building diagrams and local maps. (ITL512, $20.00)

Songbirds, Truffles and Wolves, An American Naturalist in Italy

by Gary Paul Nabhan

• TRAVEL NARRATIVE
• 1994
• PAPER
• 256 PAGES

The author, a poet and naturalist, heads along the Franciscan Way from Florence to Assisi. This most unusual travelogue combines natural history, spirituality and a lively appreciation of local food and food traditions. A print-on-demand paperback. (ITL99, $16.00)

Reluctant Saint, The Life of Francis of Assisi

by Donald Spoto

• BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR
• 2003
• PAPER
• 272 PAGES

Spoto draws on fascinating new research to explore the travels, spirit and work of the beloved saint. This engaging portrait provides an excellent overview of the life of St. Francis. (ITL849, $16.00)

Umbria Regional Map

by Touring Club Italiano

• MAP

A detailed map at a scale of 1:200,000. (ITL119, $13.95)

 

Also Recommended

Every Pilgrim's Guide to Assissi

by Judith Dean

• GUIDEBOOK
• 2002
• PAPER
• 160 PAGES

With travel tips and an introduction for those wishing to discover more about Frances and Clare, this handy pocket guide covers not just Assisi and the Basilica of St. Francis but also easy excursions father afield, including The Hermitage (Carceri), Rivotorto, the sanctuaries of the Rieti Valley, Gubbio, Perugia and Cortona. (ITA202, $16.00)

Rick Steves' Italian Phrase Book & Dictionary

by Rick Steves

• LANGUAGE & PHRASEBOOKS
• 2008
• PAPER
• 281 PAGES

This compact phrase book, organized thematically and with a brief dictionary, also includes Steves' insight into how to break the ice and make friends around the world. (ITL424, $8.95)

A Traveller's History of Italy

by Valerio Lintner

• HISTORY
• 2008
• PAPER
• 287 PAGES

A brief history of Italy through the 1990s -- wide-ranging, accessible and necessarily condensed. With a useful chronology and historical gazetteer, this book marches confidently through the centuries. (ITL86, $14.95)

La Bella Figura, A Field Guide to the Italian Mind

by Beppe Severgnini

• CULTURAL PORTRAIT
• 2007
• PAPER
• 288 PAGES
• BEST SELLER

Italians themselves love this guide to the Italian character, which addresses their never-ending passion for beauty, disorder and high emotion. Severgnini opens the book with a snapshot of the hubbub at Malpensa Airport, then moves on to Tuscany, Rome, Naples and Sardinia. (ITL718, $14.00)

Mysteries of the Middle Ages, And the Beginning of the Modern World

by Thomas Cahill

• HISTORY
• 2008
• PAPER
• 343 PAGES

Cahill deftly evokes the historic glories of the major medieval figures (and the places they frequented) in this illuminating overview of philosophy, art and literature. (EUR239, $22.00)

The Italian Renaissance

by J. H. Plumb

• HISTORY
• 2001
• PAPER
• 320 PAGES

A well-written history of the Renaissance, its artists and thinkers, with chapters on Florence, Milan, Rome and Venice, Michelangelo, Da Vinci and Women of the Renaissance. (ITL562, $16.00)

The Art of the Renaissance

by Peter Murray

• ART & ARCHITECTURE
• 1992
• PAPER
• 286 PAGES

A classic, illustrated survey of the world of the Renaissance and its art. With chapters on Florence and its artists, the Netherlands, early illustrated books and many individual artists. (ITL14, $18.95)

The Craftsman's Handbook: Il Libro dell' Arte

by Cennino d'Andrea Cennini | Daniel V. Thompson

• ART & ARCHITECTURE
• 1954
• PAPER
• 142 PAGES

A hands-on, how-to guide to the materials and techniques of 14th and 15-th century painting, both tempera and fresco, by a working artist of the day. (ITL600, $9.95)

The Piero Della Francesca Trail

by John Pope-Hennessy | Aldous Huxley

• ART & ARCHITECTURE
• 2002
• HARD COVER
• 88 PAGES

A slim guide to the major paintings and frescoes of Piero found across Tuscany and Umbria. Originally published in 1993, this edition includes 52 color illustrations along with Huxley's influential essay on Piero's Resurrection of Christ. (ITL409, $24.95)

A Valley in Italy, The Many Seasons of a Villa in Umbria

by Lisa St. Aubin de Teran

• BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR
• 1995
• PAPER
• 224 PAGES

This short memoir chronicles a year in the small Umbrian village of San Orsola--especially the delights and frustrations of renovating a decayed villa. Taking in food, wine, local customs and landscapes, the book is an excellent introduction to the region (ITL98, $14.99)

D.H. Lawrence and Italy

by D.H. Lawrence

• TRAVEL NARRATIVE
• 2008
• PAPER
• 495 PAGES

This omnibus Penguin Classics edition includes Lawrence's three travel tales, each very different in tone and all wonderful: Sea and Sardinia is a nostalgic look at traditional ways of life; Twilight in Italy, an evocation of Lawrence's memorable stay on Lake Garda; and Etruscan Places his musings on ancient sites, including the painted tombs of Tarquinia. (ITL62, $18.00)

Every Day in Tuscany, Seasons of an Italian Life

by Frances Mayes

• BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR
• 2011
• PAPER
• 288 PAGES

Twenty years later Mayes is still besotted by Italy -- her house, the tumbling geraniums, the people and the food -- all lovingly documented in her best memoir yet. With interludes in Portofino, Assisi and Rome and a focus on Renaissance master artist Luca Signorelli. (ITA124, $15.00)

God's Fool, The Life and Times of Francis of Assisi

by Julien Green

• BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR
• 1987
• PAPER
• 273 PAGES

Green's evocative biography of the beloved saint, whose ideas helped to shape the spiritual and social life of the European Middle Ages, reads like a novel. An excellent introduction. (ITL902, $15.99)

Italian Days

by Barbara Grizzuti Harrison

• TRAVEL NARRATIVE
• 1998
• PAPER
• 479 PAGES
• FAVORITE

Grizzuti Harrison writes with warmth and depth of her journey from Milan south to Calabria in this sprightly account of Italy and the Italians. (ITL02, $15.00)

On The Road with Francis of Assisi

by Linda Bird Francke

• TRAVEL NARRATIVE
• 2006
• PAPER
• 256 PAGES

Assisi wandered for 20 years, affording Newsweek editor Francke and her patient husband plenty to see and do in the piazzas, sanctuaries and chapels of Assisi, Siena, Bologna, Venice, Gubbio, Rome and other choice spots. (ITL647, $15.95)

Salvation, Scenes from the Life of Saint Francis

by Valerie Martin

• BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR
• 2002
• PAPER
• 268 PAGES

A new and splendid biography of Saint Francis of Assisi. It's a vivid literary accompaniment to Giotto's frescoes in the basilica of San Francesco, Assisi. (ITL282, $13.00)

After Hannibal

by Barry Unsworth

• LITERATURE
• 1998
• PAPER
• 250 PAGES

Unsworth's vivid novel takes in the history, landscape, pleasures and the other Americans and Europeans, like himself, who live in Umbria. (ITL100, $17.95)

Canti

by Giacomo Leopardi

• LITERATURE
• 2011
• PAPER
• 528 PAGES

An acclaimed new translation of Italy's greatest modern poet's work. Born in the Italian Marches in 1798, Leopardi lived in Rome, Central Italy, and Naples, where he died in 1837. (ITA285, $25.00)

Italy in Mind

by Alice Powers

• LITERATURE
• 1997
• PAPER
• 349 PAGES

A terrific collection of some of the best literary writing on Italy, including pieces by Melville, Lawrence, Henry James, Mary McCarthy and many others. (ITL39, $18.95)

Ratking

by Michael Dibdin

• MYSTERY
• 1997
• PAPER

Venetian crime investigator Aurelio Zen goes after the kidnappers of a Perugian industrialist in this enjoyable thriller, winner of the Gold Dagger Award (and first book in the series). (ITL622, $15.00)

• JOIN OUR PARTNERS
• Why us?
• Make a Reading Guide

• ABOUT US
• The People
• The Business

• SMALL PRINT
• Customer Service
• Ordering
• Shipping

• CONNECT
• E-mail News
• Get a Catalog
• Longitude Blog
• Contact Us