4 Quotes by John Julius Norwich

All forms of literature are dangerous; but in none is the danger more acute than in historical fiction...

When Sicily became part of the Kingdom of Naples, Palermo lost its capital status. It was never to regain it. It is now essentially a baroque city, beautiful though sadly dilapidated. But the setting – the Conca d’Oro or Shell of Gold – is as lovely as ever, and the Sicilian parliament still meets in King Roger’s old palace – so all, perhaps, is not lost.

God has given us the Papacy,” the thirty-seven-year-old pope is said to have written to his brother Giuliano soon after his accession, “now let us enjoy it.” The.

Had the Saracens captured Constantinople in the seventh century rather than the fifteenth, all Europe – and America – might be Muslim today.