Orestes Ferrara (Napoli, 8 July 1876 - Naples , 16 February 1972 ) was a lawyer , politician and writer, Italian naturalized Cuban , officer and director of the new State caribbean which will also - among other tasks - Speaker of the House of Representatives, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Delegate to UNESCO, Professor of Political Law at the University of Havana, and Ambassador at the United States. In 1896, at age 20, when Orestes was a law student at the University of Naples, Italy, he ran away and left behind his well-to-do family and beloved friends to go fight a faraway war for the liberty of a nation in a small island in the American Continent named Cuba. The young Italian fought like a Cuban "Mambi," to expel the Spanish Colony from the Caribbean island and became a Colonel in the "Cuban Independence War". In 1959, after the rise to power of Fidel Castro, he returned to Italy. Orestes Ferrara went on to make Rome's Grand Hotel Plaza in Italy his home, until his death in February 1972 at 96 years of age. He is author of many books about the life of Pope Borgia, Maquiavelo, and many others. His Memoirs is one of the most important because cover War of independence of Cuba and the political life of the Republic of Cuba. This book gives an account of the struggle of the Cuban's war for independence from Spain, and the figure of general Máximo Gómez, leading figure in the fight. A classic Cuban history book.