Six hundred years ago, Sir Johan Hawkwood arrived in Italy with a band of soldiers and settled near Florence. He soon made a name for himself and came to be known to the Italians as Giovanni Acuto.

600年前,约翰.霍克伍德爵士带着一队士兵来到意大利,在佛罗伦萨附近驻扎下来,很快就出了名.意大利人叫他乔凡尼.阿库托.每次意大利各城邦之间打伏,霍克伍德把他的士兵雇佣给愿给他出高价的君主。

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According to research by Knight Frank, the property company, 7.3pc of all London purchases in the first two months of this year were made by Italians, up from 2.1pc in the same period last year.

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The post-1992 shake-up and new party-finance rules have made politicians across the board much more careful, though Italians still have low expectations of their public servants: witness the readiness of many Italians to vote for Silvio Berlusconi, the right-wing opposition's leader, despite his convictions for fraud.

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