TIM JEPSON has been a passionate and lifelong devotee of Italy. Since graduating from Oxford, he has spent long periods of time living and traveling in the country, including a year in a remote Umbrian village - where he learned fluent Italian - and five years as a writer and journalist in Rome. Over the years he has written some 15 books on the country, as well as numerous articles for the Daily Telegraph, Vogue, Conde Nast Traveller, and other publications. He wrote the following guides in the National Geographic Traveler series: Florence and Tuscany, Naples and Southern Italy, Piedmont and Northwest Italy, and Sicily. Now based in London, Jepson continues to visit Italy regularly, and also revels in Italy's more sedentary pleasures - the food, wine, art, and culture.