Alessandro Barbero, lectures and stories

Italy's most beloved historian, who tells the past like a master storyteller: the Middle Ages, the Longobardi, the rivolta dei Ciompi, Caporetto and the First World War, Waterloo, the kidnapping of Aldo Moro, Dante, Constantine. His lectures are clipped endlessly on YouTube and gathered as a podcast.

Why it matters for Matias

For a philosophy and politics student, Barbero is the perfect on-ramp to Italian history: rigorous, vivid, and addictive. Start here and you will never see the country the same way.