A further symptom of juridical and political dysfunction is the plight of the prime minister himself. In the next six weeks, Silvio Berlusconi faces five serious prosecutions. Magistrates in Milan are bringing two for abuse of the prime ministerial office in the affair of a teenage prostitute, Karima el-Mahroug, known as Ruby "Rubacuori" (heart stealer). Berlusconi is accused of procuring sexual favours from her when she was 17 during the so-called "Bunga Bunga" orgies at his villa in Sardinia. He is also accused of using his position to get her released after arrest for theft, on the grounds that she was a relative of Hosni Mubarak.

At the same time, the Constitutional Court has removed Berlusconi's prime ministerial and parliamentary immunity for him to stand trial on three counts of bribery, including one involving the British lawyer David Mills. In all cases, the magistrates have requested "fast-track" trial procedures, which is a story in itself. In Italy there are currently nine and a half million  trials pending.

David Gilmour deftly guides us through all the upheavals, and twists and turns of a similar nature in the Italian past. This makes the book an ideal travelling companion, particularly for those trying to get to grips with the mysteries of Italy for the first time. It provides a very good summary of the best contemporary writing about the subject, particularly by English and American historians and commentators.

Any compendium account such as this is bound to be selective, but it is when the book turns from history to assessing the present day, the Italy of journalism, that the touch is less sure. Severe judgment is meted out on the standards and behaviour of Italian politicians and officials, and the corruption and chaos in environmental and urban planning, and rightly so. But pretty soon the glass, bottle and fiasco become more than half empty. The judgment is too severe, too transalpine and Anglo-Saxon.

In the end he has to explain the success, why Italy survives and why so much of Italian thinking and creating is so much admired. The last few pages rather unoriginally conclude that the winning ingredients are the failure of Italy as a unified state, and the strength of local loyalties and rivalry, or campanilismo, and the strength of the family — with only a superficial glance at both.