In the last decade, Italian Mesozoic marine deposits have revealed the unexpected presence of dinosaurs. Dinosaurs of Italy is a faithful report of those discoveries. It is a popular but thorough book, written by one of the leading dinosaur paleontologists in Italy with the collaboration of the science writer Giuseppe Brillante. After an introduction to the world of dinosaurs, each chapter deals with one finding: from dinosaur footprints (including new sites from southern Italy found in 2000) and the exciting discovery and description of Scipionyx, to the Trieste hadrosaurs and the very recent “saltriosaur.” Italian marine and flying reptiles are also described, represented by spectacular specimens such as the large shastasaurid ichthyosaur Besanosaurus and the most ancient pterosaur Eudimorphodon. Other chapters deal with the K/T boundary of Gubbio and its role in reconstructing the story of dinosaur extinction and offer speculations about future findings. The book includes the true story of Scipionyx's discovery, written by its lead researcher.

Cristiano dal Sasso is Head of the Laboratory of Paleontology at the Museum of Natural History in Milan. He was technical coordinator of the excavations at the Triassic fossil site of Besano. He has described three new kinds of reptiles (Aphanizocnemus, Besanosaurus, and Scipionyx) and has authored numerous popular reports and scientific papers, which have been published in international reviews such as Nature, Science, and the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.