for religious books on ancient times, two come to mind:

For early Jewish life, I recommend reading: The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant by John Dominic Crossan. The book is probably 60% on the political and social structures of life leading up to the 1st century c.e.

Jesus the Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium is the most engaging historical book on the life of Jesus and Early Christian Followers.

Warning: both books are historically driven by two accomplished historical scholars. Much of their writing conflicts or contradicts the bible and traditional beliefs. But if you are looking to understand how Judaism or Christianity operated around the year 0 and heading forward, then these books are highly recommended.

On Italian history, it's more popular history than scholarly, but I enjoyed The Pursuit of Italy by David Gilmour.

A few medieval Italy books. These are all excellent books but note its been about 5 years since I actively pursued the topic so these are goodies but perhaps a bit outdated.

• Giovanni Tabacco's The Struggle for Power in Medieval Italy translated by Jensen is a classic in the field.

• Another classic is David Waley's The Italian City-Republics

• More recent (i.e. 90s not 60s oh god when did 1997 become not recent...) is Philip Jones' The Italian City-State

• Ken'ts Rise of the Medici and Hyde's [Padua in the Age of Dante] (http://www.worldcat.org/title/padua-in-the-age-of-dante/oclc/1050741&referer=brief_results) are both good survey's of particular communes in the later Middle Ages

So there you go lots of books on medieval Italy. They are all academic monographs but are all fairly accessible for what its worth, if I think of a more "intro" book I'll post it.

Happy Reading