(September 23, 2016) With the book “The Cross and the Lion”, the historian Luigi Robuschi analyzes the secular and complex relationship between the Republic of Venice and the Order of Malta using the documentation kept at the Archive of the Grand Priory of Lombardy and Venice of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. Robuschi will present his book at the Italian Club in Johannesburg. The event, scheduled for September 29 at 18.30, is organised by the Istituto Italiano di Cultura in Pretoria in collaboration with the ‘Associazione Piemontesi nel Mondo’. Luigi Robuschi is a historian specialized in modern era Venetian history and lecturer in Italian Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. In his book he brings to light, along with the frequent disagreements and misunderstandings, a continuous dialogue, through which two of the major Mediterranean aristocratic republics succeeded in developing military alliances, commercial and financial interests, finally coming to understand and to recognize themselves. (Red)