Rome in Literature: A book explores it through the eyes of Montaigne, Goethe, Dickens, and other geniuses

From Montaigne to Rilke , via Chateaubriand, Dickens , Twain , Melville, Goethe, James and Stendhal , the Literary Guide to Rome presents a different vision of the most artistic of cities, with the essential places of the Eternal City seen by literary geniuses.

The Eternal City has traditionally been a destination for writers eager to contemplate the ruins of past glories and marvel at the artistic wonders housed in its churches, palaces, and museums.

For the past two millennia, Rome has been one of the most visited cities in the world , first as the capital of an empire that dominated the Mediterranean, then as a center of Christian faith and pilgrimage for the faithful, and during the Renaissance, an essential enclave for art, education, philosophy, and commerce, to which artists and bankers alike flocked.

As the prologue to the Literary Guide to Rome (Ático de los Libros) notes, it was in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries when the city established itself as one of the main stops on the Grand Tour , the journey through Europe that every young English aristocrat was required to take to complete their education and immerse themselves in classical culture, art, philosophy and architecture.

The Grand Tour travelers were scholars, passionate, loved luxury and could afford it , and from their privileged perspective their perceptions influenced the imagination of later visitors, before the door to mass tourism opened in the 20th century.

The vision of Montaigne , perhaps the first of all these modern travelers, that of Goethe, Chateaubriand, Mary Shelley and the other authors who appear in the volume convey to the reader an innocent view of Rome, one that is difficult to sustain today.

The chronological journey begins with the first great traveler, the Greek geographer and historian Strabo , who speaks of "the greatness of Rome" which he attributes to "Pompey, the Divine Caesar, with his children, friends, wife and sister, who have surpassed all others in zeal and munificence in adorning their city."

Strabo himself speaks of Rome's need for wood and stone "for the construction work caused by the frequent collapse of houses and by fires and sales that never seem to stop."

In order to avoid these evils, Strabo relates, Caesar Augustus "instituted a company of freedmen ready to assist in case of fire, while, in order to prevent the collapse of houses, he decreed that all new buildings should not be as high as the previous ones."

In 1580, Michel de Montaigne undertook a journey to Switzerland, Germany and Italy and recorded his impressions in a journal published in 1774, long after his death (1592).

For Montaigne, who gave Rome the victory without any room for doubt in a comparison with Paris , comes to its defense when he says: "That these small signs of its ruin that still appeared were testimony to this infinite magnificence that neither so many centuries nor so many fires nor the entire world repeatedly conspiring had managed to extinguish completely."

Many did not hide their love at first sight with Rome in their publications, such as Goethe , who considered Rome as his university; Chateaubriand , Stendhal , Henry James or Rainer Maria Rilke .

Others focused on specific aspects, such as Tobias Smollett, who talks about the Baths of Caracalla and the Pantheon; Percy Bysse Shelley, who talks about the Palazzo Cenci; James Fenimore Cooper, who focuses on the Pantheon and the women of Rome ; Herman Melville, who focuses on Roman statues ; Mark Twain, who emphasizes St. Peter's, the Colosseum and the catacombs ; Hugh Macmillan, who places it in the Piazza di Spagna; or Edward Gibbon, who, starting from the Colosseum, talks about the decline and fall of the Roman Empire.

The only Spaniard included in the book is Pedro Antonio de Alarcón , author of El sombrero de tres picos , who cultivated the genre of travel literature and who in 1861 published De Madrid a Nápoles with the experiences of a trip made in the midst of the unification process of Italy.