The Diary Review

‘Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law [. . .] I am aflame with the brandy of the thought that I am the sublimest Mystic in all hi...

‘I fall into bed exhausted. I dream that Jeanne Moreau wants to come out of the painting too, but for some reason I can’t do it for her. I k...

Happy birthday Reinhold Messner, 80 years old today. An Italian mountaineer, dubbed by some as the greatest climber in history, he was the f...

The great Italian film director, Federico Fellini, died 30 years ago today. He won four Oscars for best foreign language film, more than any...

Piero Manzoni, an Italian avant-garde artist famous for canning his own excrement, died 60 years ago today, still only 30 years old. Though ...

‘I keepe a dayere . . . for the expense of my time, as I doe for that money I spend . . .’ This is Bullen Reymes - a courtier, diplomat and ...

‘Am listless and sleepy, as I have never been before. I sleep little at nights: before me I always see the ruin of Italy, . .’ This is from ...

Today marks the 120th anniversary of the birth of the celebrated English biographer, Iris Origo. She spent most of her life in Italy; there ...

Walter Scott, one of Britain’s greatest writers and the first to gain international celebrity status, was born a quarter of a millennium ago...