Review

Italia: Civilta e Cultura is an extremely useful and versatile tool for our intermediate and advance students of Italian. The manuscript offers a sound, comprehensive overview of Italy's culture, wonderfully capturing its geography, history, art, music, literature and cinema. It is a valuable learning tool capable of enriching the experience of both students and teachers of Italian. We are delighted to adopt it at the Institute. (Francesca Valente )

Italia: Civilta e Cultura provides a fine supplement to any Italian language and culture course, as it covers Italian geography, history, literature, art, cinema, and culture in an appropriate and succinct manner. It should become very popular among North American Italian language instructors. (Peter Bondanella )

This book also presents the added advantage of introducing the student to a concise and coherent overview of the most important aspects of Italian culture and civilization while easily lending itself to further expansion, classroom discussion and research. Insofar as the book meets the stated pedagogical objectives, I am fully convinced that it will have an important impact in our profession and that will be widely welcomed in our schools and colleges. (Roberto Severino, Ph.D. )

About the Author

Paola Lorenzi is Assistant Professor of Italian and Director of the Italian Language Program at Pepperdine University where she successfully established a minor and Bachelor of Arts in Italian Studies. A native of Italy, she received her Laurea in Foreign Languages and Literature from the University of Florence. She also attended Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California for post-graduate studies in art, design and photography. In 2007 the Italian government honored her with the distinguished title of "Cavaliere della Repubblica Italiana". Her translations of various works have been published in journals of Italian studies.

Luisetta Elia Chomel is Professor of Italian Emerita at the University of Houston where she was the director of the Program of Italian Studies. During her thirty years on the faculty of the University, her activity was directed toward the expansion of the program of Italian, as well as research. She introduced a number of new courses and, in 1992, established a Bachelor Degree in Italian Studies. Dr. Chomel is the author of a book on D'Annunzio's theater and numerous articles on Italian literature, theater, and cinema.