Florence

Christopher Hibbert was born in 1924 and educated at Radley and Oriel College, Oxford. He served as an infantry officer during the war and was awarded the Military Cross in 1945. His many highly acclaimed books include the following titles: The Destruction of Lord Raglan (which won the Heinemann Award for Literature in 1962), London: The Biography of a City, The Rise and Fall of the House of Medici, The Great Mutiny: India 1857, The French Revolution, Garibaldi and His Enemies, Rome: The Biography of a City, Elizabeth I: A Personal History of the Virgin Queen, Nelson: A Personal History, George III: A Personal History and The Marlboroughs: John and Sarah Churchill 1650 - 1744. Christopher Hibbert is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and an Hon. D. Litt. of Leicester University. He is married with two sons and a daughter, and lives in Henley-on-Thames.

• The Roman city, 59 BC-AD 405; marauders, emperors and Margraves, 405-1115; merchants, Guelphs and Ghibellines, 1115-1280; blacks and whites, 1280-1302; life in Dante's Florence, 1265-1348; strikes and riots, 1348-1420; the rise of the House of Medici, 1420-39; artists of the Medici, 1439-64; father of the country, 1455-64; wives and weddings, 1464-72; the Pazzi conspiracy, 1478; Lorenzo the magnificent, 1478-92; the bonfire of the vanities, 1492-8; conspirators and cardinals, 1490-1527; siege and murder, 1527-37; the Grand Duke Cosimo I, 1537-74; pageants and pleasures, 1560-1765; tourists and tuft-hunters, 1740-88; the Grand Duke Peter Leopold, 1765-91; Napoleonic interlude, 1796-1827; Risorgimento, 1814-59; the capital of Italy; "Ville Toute Anglais"; residents and visitors; "Firenze Fascistissima", 1919-40; war and peace, 1940-66; flood and restoration, 1966-92. Notes on buildings and works of art. Table of principle events. The Medici family.