John Julius Norwich, born in 1929, took a degree in French and Russian at New College, Oxford. In 1952 he joined the Foreign Service at the embassies in Belgrade and Beirut and with the British delegation to the Disarmament Conference at Geneva. In 1964 he resigned from the service in order to write. His many publications include A History of Venice and Byzantium and the New York Times bestseller Absolute Monarchs: A History of the Papacy. Lord Norwich is former chairman of the Venice in Peril Fund, Honorary Trustee and Chair Emeritus of the World Monuments Fund and a former member of the Executive Committee of the National Trust. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, the Royal Geographic Society and the Society of Antiquaries, and a Commendatore of the Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana. He was made a CVO in 1993.He has written and presented some thirty historical documentaries for television, and is a regular lecturer on Venice and numerous other subjects.

John Julius Norwich, born in 1929, took a degree in French and Russian at New College, Oxford. In 1952 he joined the Foreign Service at the embassies in Belgrade and Beirut and with the British delegation to the Disarmament Conference at Geneva. In 1964 he resigned from the service in order to write. His many publications include A History of Venice and Byzantium and the New York Times bestseller Absolute Monarchs: A History of the Papacy. Lord Norwich is former chairman of the Venice in Peril Fund, Honorary Trustee and Chair Emeritus of the World Monuments Fund and a former member of the Executive Committee of the National Trust. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, the Royal Geographic Society and the Society of Antiquaries, and a Commendatore of the Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana. He was made a CVO in 1993.He has written and presented some thirty historical documentaries for television, and is a regular lecturer on Venice and numerous other subjects.