PAOLO POGLIARANI

In Divo Italiano, the great names of Italian cinema come together in an ideal parade to make the most outstanding movie festival blush with jealousy. The "classic" faces, the most loved ones, representing the Italians all over the world, names that don't need any presentation - Mastroianni, Sordi, Gassman, Tognazzi, Manfredi, Volont. These great actors are our precious patrimony, ideal ambassadors of an Italian style of which they showed virtues and vices...mostly vices. We are grateful to these actors and their capacity to represent us even through curios and bizzare characters: deep down we can all recognize ourselves behind the shades of fiction.

This new book is an A to Z of Italian cinema's most famous and beautiful women including Claudia Cardinale, Elsa Martinelli, Gina Lollobrigida, Virna Lisi and Sophie Loren, amongst many others. This is a rare and evocative collection of photographs from cinematic history, caught on camera by the most celebrated Roman photographers, the 'paparazzi' as Fellini called them in his immortal La Dolca Vita. Whether taken from movie sets, posed in studio, or images stolen from the intimate moments of these dream women (like the one of Sophia Loren in her hotel room on hearing the news of her winning the Oscar for La Ciociara), these photographs beautifully illustrate the divas of the time. It is a must for movie lovers!