Princess Alice: Queen Victoria's Forgotten Daughter

History

Noel, Gerard

Europe

Constable and Company Ltd.

Ena: Spain's English Queen

Biographies & Memoirs

Constable & Robinson Limited

Between the years of 1447 (Nicholas V) and 1572 (Pius V), the Vatican became the official home of the Church, and a succession of Renaissance Popes — who were statesmen, warriors, and patrons of the arts as well as churchmen — turned Rome into an unparalleled center for culture, and turned the Church into the world's largest bureaucracy. These mercurial popes, such as Alexander VI, the infamous Borgia patriarch, and Julius 'Il Terrible' II, contributed to cultural achievements — the Basilica of St. Peters and Michaelangelo's Sistine Chapel — through the sale of indulgences, and targeted heretics with Inquisitions and witchhunts. In the midst of this explosion of great culture and violent debasement, Alexander VI, father of the ruthless Cesare and jezebel Lucrezia, came to be seen as the embodiment of this iniquity. But Gerard Noel shows that Alexander's legacy was tainted by false confessions and historical myth. In fact, Alexander created the blueprint for reform — the first of its kind — that would eventually lead to the Counter-Reformation. In his survey of the colorful reigns of the seventeen Renaissance Popes and his examination of the great Borgia myth, Noel brings to light the true legacy — political, artistic, religious — of an extraordinary time.

The Renaissance Popes: Statesmen, Warriors and the Great Borgia Myth

Arts & Photography

Basic Books

M. Russell

A Portrait of the Inner Temple

Literature & Fiction

Michael Russell Publishing Ltd

A thoughtful and provocative biography of the controversial Pope who led the Catholic Church during World War II 
There is a claim that Hitler's rise to power was left unchallenged by the inaction of Pope Pius XII. In contrast, Gerard Noel's Pius XII: The Hound of Hitler is a highly original study of the exercise of political and religious power, of realpolitik and the extent to which politics is always the art of the possible. 
This book also offers an intimate portrait of a man at the pinnacle of the Catholic church. Noel contends that Pius XII was mother-fixated and dominated by a German nun, Sister Pasqualina, who became the real power behind the throne and who was ultimately more liberal and anti-Nazi than the Pope himself. Indeed, he says, it was Pasqualina who did most to shelter the Jewish population of Rome. As time advanced, Pius XII became more and more aloof and rigid in his views. By 1950 he promulgated the Doctrine of The Assumption, the ultimate expression of autocratic power, as infallible. 
Today there is a movement to canonize Pius XII which is predictably resisted by many influential people, and for this reason alone Pius XII continues to command much attention, debate, and controversy. Pius XII: The Hound of Hitler is neither a demolition job nor a piece of hagiography, as Gerard Noel explores the fatal effect of the Vatican's concord with Hitler and Pius XII's failure to condemn Hitler's attempt to exterminate the Jews.

Pius XII: The Hound of Hitler

Historical

Continuum

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Books by Noel, Gerard