Twenty-seven years in the making, Terra Cognita chronicles the author's continual travels--and problematic (if still, at times, ecstatic) encounters--in the "bel paese." Across nine richly evocative essays, Chad Davidson investigates the seemingly never-ending fascination that travelers have with Italy. As much a meditation on what home and away mean as it is a travel memoir, Terra Cognita finds literary predecessors such as Dante and Italo Calvino...