Gabriele D'Annunzio was one of the most flamboyant, brilliant and altogether incalculable personalities of the 19th and 20th centuries. His talents were enough to make the most accomplished Renaissance man flinch: he was a poet, lover, soldier and patriot. He was a well-known poet at the age of 17; thereafter he also wrote plays and novels and became the best-known writer in Europe. He was deservedly the most publicized lover of his time; his affair...