Rome. The Biography of the City

Christopher Hibbert was born in Leicestershire in 1924 and educated at Radley and Oriel College, Oxford. He served as an infantry officer during the war, was twice wounded and was awarded the Military Cross in 1945. Described in the New Statesman as ‘a pearl of biographers’, he is, in the words of The Times Educational Supplement, ‘perhaps the most gifted popular historian we have’. His many highly acclaimed books include the following titles, most of which are published by Penguin: The Destruction of Lord Raglan (which won the Heinemann Award for Literature in 1962); London: The Biography of a City; The Rise and Fall of the House of Medici; The Great Mutiny: India 1857; The French Revolution; Garibaldi and His Enemies; Rome: The Biography of a City; Elizabeth I: A Personal History of the Virgin Queen; Florence: The Biography of a City; Nelson: A Personal History; George III: A Personal History; and The Marlboroughs: John and Sarah Churchill 1650–1744.

Christopher Hibbert is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and an Hon. D. Litt. of Leicester University. He is married with two sons and a daughter, and lives in Henley-on-Thames.

The frontispiece shows a detail of the Isola Tiberina by G. Vanvitelli (1653–1736) from the Musei Capitolini in Rome