Draws on previously unknown documents from the Vatican archives to detail a late-nineteenth-century plot on the part of Pope Pius IX and his successor, Leo XIII, to block the unification of Italy and to seize control of Rome and the Papal States, in a colorful history marked by such key individuals as the two pontiffs, Italy's national hero Garibaldi, King Victor Emmanuel, and France's Napoleon III.
David I. Kertzer is the author of, among other books, Prisoner of the Vatican, The Popes Against the Jews, and The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara, winner of the National Jewish Book Award and a finalist for the National Book Award. He is provost of Brown University and professor of anthropology and Italian studies.
David I. Kertzer is the Paul Dupee University Professor of Social Science at Brown University.