In ways no guide book can achieve, these twenty absorbing tales by Italian authors ranging from Boccaccio in the Middle Ages to Giacomo Casanova in the eighteenth century, to Pier-Paolo Pasolini in the twentieth & contemporary new writers such as Melania Mazzucco & Igiaba Scego, offer the delight of discovering & exploring one of the world`s most unique cities thorough a wide variety of individual lives & epochs. The tales span seven hundred years but rather than being ordered chronologically, old & new appear alongside one another, reflecting the dual identity of Rome
- thriving, modern metropolis & ancient city centre that is one of the wonders of the world. The tales are wonderfully varied in style, tone, & subject matter. Casanova sets about seducing the hotelier`s daughter only minutes after his arrival, a notorious Spanish prostitute in Renaissance Rome endures a public hiding without flinching, a Danish tourist in her sixties finds an unusual lover, Pope John Paul II uncovers a vast conspiracy against him, a medieval revolutionary demagogue suffers almost the same fate as Mussolini. Each story is illustrated with a black-&-white photograph & there is a map of Rome to help readers locate the important sites which feature in the text. A deep sense of timelessness, of separate destinies entwined across a gulf of centuries, is the cumulative effect of this vivid mosaic of dramatic, comic, & tragic stories set in the Eternal City.