Elizabeth Louise Bernhardt (PhD, University of Toronto) has enjoyed living for many years between Bologna and Rome where the stories of this book unfold. In Italy she has taught courses about her main interests: the history and culture of the Italian family (for the University of California in Rome) and early modern Italian art and artisan history (for the Liceo Classico Giulio Cesare in Rome). There she also published two handbooks about Italian art with Ginevra Bentivoglio Editoria. In her hometown she has taught Italian at Saint Louis University and is currently a Lecturer in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at Washington University in St. Louis.