This is not an exhaustive List – I am including my personal favourites under various headings and will add more as I read or remember them!
History
Florence – Christopher Hibbert
The Rise and Fall of the House of Medici – Christopher Hibbert
Catherine de’Medici – R J Knecht
Saving Italy – Robert Edsell
Renaissance Florence – Gene A. Brucker
The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy – Jacob Burckhardt
Galileo’s Daughter – Dava Sobel
Images of Quattrocento Florence – selected writings in Literature, History and Art – edited by Stefano Ugo Baldassarri & Arielle Saiber
Lives of the Artists – Giorgio Vasari
Cellini – Autobiography – Benvenuto Cellini (spoiler alert – this could also be included under works of Fiction!)
Hawkswood – Diabolical Englishman – Francis Stonor Saunders
The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy – Jacob Burckhardt
War in Val d’Orcia – Iris Origo – first-hand diary experiences made into a memoir of WWII
The Vampyre Family – Passion, Envy and the Curse of Byron – finishes with elderly Claire Clairmont & her niece, Plin, in Florence – background to Henry James’ The Aspern Papers
Art Books
Understanding Italian Renaissance Painting – Stefano Zuffi
