"This intense and exciting book brings back to life the voice of Ludwig Pollak who, when confronted with Nazi-occupied Rome's grim reality, powerfully conveys a taste for collecting, the pleasure of erudition, and an unshakeable faith in culture. This period of European history—remarkably captured here by Hans von Trotha—still has much to tell us."

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Salvatore Settis, chairman of the Louvre Museum Scientific Council and author of Laocoön and If Venice Dies