[1] Origo, with her Italian husband Antonio, a nobleman, owned and managed the estate of La Foce, covering 57 farms on some 7000 acres (c. 2833 ha).
The account begins with the arrival of the first refugee children, sent by parents with local links, in response to the Allied bombing of cities, particularly Genoa and Turin.
"[3] The overthrow of Mussolini on 24 July 1943[4] was followed by a short chaotic period of "Fascist Republican" rule under the Italian Social Republic, whose actions were progressively superseded by the weight of German occupation and military reinforcements from Germany.
[6] The couple's tasks were complicated by having some 50 British prisoners of war billeted on them,[7] in addition to over 20 child evacuees, many other outlawed people, partisans, and others who had fallen foul of the Fascists and/or the German occupiers at various times.
exhorts its listeners in England to be patient – but this is less easy for those living here, who are still enduring Allied bombings, as well as increasingly severe German and Fascist repressive measures.
But the bombing of a little town like Arezzo, including the districts farthest away from the railway – and of country churches, like the Convento dell'Osservanza outside Siena – these, and the machine-gunning of the civilian population, cannot easily be explained.
"[19] After several false alarms, Origo and her family and those dependent on them were forced to leave La Foce, as battle between the Germans and the Allies for control of the district heated up.
"[23] Dr Rick Price, an American reader, commented in 2010: "Iris Origo is remarkable for the ease with which she documents, almost daily, the progress of the war in Italy through her diary.
"[24] The New Yorker is quoted as saying, "War in Val D'Orcia is the simple, day-to-day record of the terrible years 1943–44 in Italy, set down by a woman who was always too busy, she noted, to remember to feel afraid.