The Companion Guide to Rome

Georgina Masson
Revised by John Fort

Excerpts from this Guide

On the Domus Aurea, or Nero’s Golden House:
It was the seizure of this vast tract of land, laid bare by the famous fire of AD 64, and its conversion into a private park in the heart of the city, that infuriated the Romans, more even than the sybaritic luxury of the palace itself. Judging from the strictures of Vitellius and the descriptions of Suetonius the palace seems to have been designed more for luxury than comfort. Sea-water, as well as sulphur-water from Tivoli, was piped into its baths, part of its interior was decorated with mother-of-pearl and gems and its dining-rooms had fretted ivory ceilings through which flowers could be scattered. In other rooms ceilings were fitted with a system of pipes spraying scents and the place was called the Domus Aurea because the main façade was covered with gold.
Chapter 17, The Golden House of Nero to S. Pudenziana , p. 377

On the Sistine Chapel:
Here in the Last Judgement it is the terribilità (terribleness) that so impressed his contemporaries which dominates Michelangelo’s art to the exclusion of all else. He has portrayed the dies irae – the day of wrath – with Christ as the inexorable judge standing in the clouds. The only note of tenderness is the Virgin’s figure; the Apostles and prophets, ranged on either side, are portrayed with elemental force. In the centre of the composition angels sound the last trumpet to wake the dead, who are pictured in the left-hand corner; more angels raise those among them who are to be saved. On the other side of the picture, damned souls descend in chaos to Charon, waiting with his fateful barque to ferry them to Minos and the underworld. It is a scene of tragic grandeur, once beheld never to be forgotten.
Chapter 26, The Vatican Palace and Museum, p. 575

On the area around Via dei Baullari:
This roughly triangular stretch of land in the bend of the Tiber, now bounded to the north and east by the Corso Vittorio Emanuele and Via Arenula, came to be the heart of Renaissance Rome. Here in that turbulent period lived so many of the figures whose very names conjure up for us the light and shade – the artistic brilliance and the sinister intrigue – of the vast canvas which we call history. Foremost among them are Rodrigo Borgia, later Pope Alexander VI (1492-1503) and his beautiful mistress Vannozza Cattanei, mother of Cesare, Lucrezia and the Duke of Gandia, all of who were born here. Here also Benvenuto Cellini fought and brawled with boon companions and created his masterpieces; here Imperia, most famous of the Renaissance courtesans, poisoned herself. Here also magnificent papal nephews and cardinals like Raffaele Riario and Allessandro Farnese (later Pope Paul III, 1534-49) built their superb palaces which still dominate the scene. By day these streets are now filled with the roar of a modern city. But at night it is not so difficult to picture the Corsican assassin lying in wait for Cellini in the shadows of the Via Giulia, the murderous duel fought for the favours of the beautiful courtesan La Grechetta in the Piazza del Biscione, or the gambling parties where fortunes changed hands overnight, like the one where Riario won 60,000 scudi with which he built the Cancelleria Palace.
Chapter 6, S. Andrea della Valle to Palazzo Spada, p. 137

On the Piazzoa del Popolo:
The Piazza del Popolo is one of the most superb of its kind, even in this city of beautiful squares. […]

In the fifteenth century the church and its adjoining monastery stood in the midst of vineyards and vegetable plots, reaching from the Aurelian wall to S. Lorenzo in Lucina. In spite of Leo X’s efforts, the development of the area was slow. It was only in 1561 that Pius IV commissioned Nanni de Baccio Bigio to replace the ruined medieval gate in the Aurelian wall by the existing Porta del Popolo. This was the first step towards the creation of the wonderful monumental setting of the piazza. The next was taken by the redoubtable Sixtus V, who used to get up very early in the morning personally to inspect the progress of his building schemes. In 1589 he re-erected the obelisk in the centre of the square, which came from the Circus Maximus and is the second oldest obelisk in Rome; it dates from the thirteenth century BC and had been brought from Heliopolis to Rome by Augustus.
Chapter 11, Piazza del Popolo to Piazza Thorwaldsen, p. 250

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Masterly revision of a classic. THE TIMES