Peter Robb (1) (1946–)

This could be the best book I have read on Sicily and Naples. Robb lived for 14 years in Naples and Sicily. The books wanders wondrously through time, however, Robb writes so seamlessly you do not seem to notice. His passions are food and art and he tells history through these passions. The book's primary focus is on the mafia and how it has come to poison Italian society, with corruption going all the way to the top. He recounts how the Aliies after their occupation of Sicily during WWII show more turned to the Mafia to restablish local political control, out of fear that the Communists would fill the political vacuum caused by the demise of fascism. Lucky Luciano was released from prison to be our diplomatic go-between. No wonder they have problems. show less

Deliciously gossipy biography in a vividly journalistic style. Robb has certain quirks and takes a defiantly back-to-basics approach. Unable to find the name that contemporaries universally used for Caravaggio, he refers to him as 'M' throughout; and he gives the paintings crisp, curt titles. Caravaggio swaggers through these pages: devil-may-care, quick for a fight and sexually omniverous. It's the kind of book people either love or hate. I happen to love it for the way it utterly show more disregards conventional artist biography; and it's impossible to find a book which better evokes the brutally violent world of backstreet 17th-century Rome. show less

For goodness' sake don't let this be the only book you read about Caravaggio, but DO let it inject some mischief and fun into your study of his stunning paintings; and let it be a reminder, too, that 'great art' is not something abstract which floats ready-made above the seedy world which the rest of us inhabit, but is something which is itself created in and through that world - which, here, Peter Robb brings rivetingly to life. I think it's fantastic! Naughty, but VERY nice.

The one book about Sicily I read, during a short trip, is “Midnight in Sicily” (1996), written by Peter Robb. Although the book is advertised by its sub-title, on arts, food, history, travel & Cosa Nostra, the latter is by far the dominant subject. Robb describes, sometimes in sickening detail, how the Mafia turned itself from a group of family- and village-based criminal bands who made their money from cigarette smuggling and protection rings, loosely governed by a overarching Cupola to show more ensure that different gangs didn’t interfere with each other’s operation, into an efficient crime-machine intricately interwoven with Italian politics at all levels – and I mean, literally, at all levels: the book is kind of linked to the trial of seven-time prime minister Guilio Andreotti. At the same time Robb plausibly sketches the mechanism that undid the Mafia: not so much the efforts of a few determinded anti-mafia fighters, however noble and courageous their cause, but more so the rise and rise of Riina Toti, who took control of the Cupola, and systematically began to murder everybody in the organisation who could possibly challenge him, to the effect that quite a few, not sure about their lives inside the Mafia anymore, decided to get out, and break the Omerta, the code of silence, in an last attempt to survive.

Mr Robb’s book does divert, and has entertaining parts on, for instance, the history of the fork, and the origin of pasta. Mr Robb also meets interesting people, like a woman photographer turned politician, fiercely anti-Mafia. But every time, he ultimately comes back to his prime subject, the Mafia, and every time, he spells out other gruesome details – sometimes, perhaps, too much. But it doesn’t diminish the intensity of the book, and the message it puts forward, that Italy was on the brink of becoming ungovernable. Great book for anybody interested not just in Sicily, but also in the post-war history of Italy. show less