A reference work for enthusiasts and lovers of Italian literature. The Romance scholar Professor Manfred Hardt guides the reader from the Canticle of the Sun by Saint Francis through the early classicism of the 14th century, the glorious era of the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, Neoclassicism, Romanticism, Verismo, and Fin-de-siècle, all the way to the literary phenomena of the present day. Each era is preceded by a historical overview, and the biographies of the authors are also illuminated.