Benito Mussolini

Italy

Episode 2Was this ambition?

Sex, scandal and slander: who was Messalina?

Roman Forum in Rome, Italy (Photo by Olgacov | Dreamstime.com)

Rome historyEmperors, popes and Renaissance glory

Landmarks of Prague

Prague historyCastles, cathedrals and conflict

Fascist leaders pictured a few days before the March on Rome, October 1922. Benito Mussolini (centre) would soon be the most powerful man in Italy (Photo by Mondadori via Getty Images)

Mussolini's March on RomeHow Italy became the first fascist state

The election of Giorgia Meloni as Italy’s first female prime minister

The rise of Giorgia Meloni“It makes plain the strange way a dictator has retained a positive image in many sectors of Italian society”

Benito Mussolini

Mussolini's willing followers? The Italians devoted to Fascism and the duce

Mussolini salutes in front of the statue of the Roman emperor Nerva, in the 1930s

How Italian dictator Benito Mussolini became the first face of fascism

Fascism: everything you wanted to know

How did pasta come to Europe and when did it first become established in Italy?

An illustration from The Travels of Marco Polo, showing a teenage Marco on the deck of a ship sailing away from Venice

Why are Marco Polo's travels so famous?

Pompeii: everything you wanted to know

A mosaic that shows two Roman women exercising, one holds a flower and another holds a leaf

7 things you (probably) didn’t know about Roman women

The death of Domitian: how aristocrats conspired against the Roman emperor

A portrait of a member of the Borgias family

The Borgias: everything you wanted to know

Bust of Lorenzo de' Medici

Lorenzo the MagnificentThe astounding life of the ‘delightful tyrant’ of Renaissance Florence

Pompeii: a remarkable window into ancient Roman life

'The Journey of the Magi' by Benozzo Gozzoli, commissioned by Piero the Gouty for the Palazzo Medici Riccardi. It features his son Lorenzo, who would become known as Lorenzo the Magnificent, as one of the three kings

“They were on a level with today’s billionaires” – your guide to the Medici: bankers to the Pope, rulers of Florence, patrons of the Renaissance

A bust of Marcus Aurelius and a detail on Marcus Aurelius’s column in Rome

Marcus Aurelius: Rome’s reluctant killer

The Medici: everything you wanted to know

Basilica of San Vitale, Ravenna, Emilia-Romagna, Italy (Photo by Alamy)

Ravenna: from Roman powerhouse to artistic hub

QuizHow well do you know your warships?

How Machiavellian was Machiavelli?

Leonardo da Vinci’s private life

Leonardo: bringing Da Vinci to the screen

Aidan Turner as Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo: the real history behind the new Renaissance drama

Drawing of an old and young man, possibly Salai, by Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci’s private relationships: what's known?

Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo

Leonardo & Michelangelo: rivalry and inspiration

Leonardo da Vinci’s full-scale cartoon drawing of Isabella d’Este

Leonardo da Vinci's patrons: the people who paid for the masterpieces

Salt cellar with Neptune and Tellus by Benvenuto Cellini

Benvenuto CelliniHow the 'bad boy' sculptor gives us a fresh perspective on the Renaissance