Three hundred pages for a history of the Church? Too little. But just enough to trace concisely the main features of the Church over the centuries. This book speaks of events, documents, stories, and prophecies, of sins and holiness, which allow us to discern truth from falsehood, distinguish between anti-Catholic propaganda and the actual reality of the Church. They recount the glories of the lives of martyrs and saints alongside the concrete difficulties, ambigui- ties, and compromises in the papal relations with temporal power. The author has chosen, from among so many events, those that can help us understand the main problems, challenges and difficulties the Church has faced over the course of time.Angela Pellicciari is one of the most important historians of the Italian Risorgimento and of the relations between the papacy and freemasonry.