Rome: A Cultural, Visual, and Personal History (edition 2011)

Here's a vigorously positive NYT review. Anybody read this Robert Hughes guy? He wrote "The Fatal Shore," about the founding of Australia?

This is a sweeping, searing history of the Eternal City, giving a grand tour of the city, immersed in history.

This history is primarily focused on the art and culture of the city, offering cutting remarks on the political side of things. With such eminent leaders as Berlusconi, who could blame him for being dismissive?

The only flaw I could notice was that the book needed even more pictures - but that isn't so bad - Google the relevant art works and you should follow Hughes' whirlwind tour of the city just fine.

The book ends with a warning on cultural decay and overcrowding of the city, but there is the hope that this city will somehow survive, shambling onwards, despite everything. ( )

The city of Rome has been a living, breathing chronograph of human endeavors for millennia. Ancient. Imperial. Medieval. Renaissance. Baroque. Neo-Classical. Modern. Futurist. The designations suggest not only temporal moments, but styles and states of mind.

Robert Hughes here views the Eternal City through an art critic’s lens, the visual language of its monuments, frescoes, statuary and paintings referencing the history of those styles and states of mind. The reader finishes with an appreciation for the long achievements of thought, feeling, and technique symbolized by the city. There are more sculptors, architects, and painters here than there are emperors and popes (a good thing, if you ask me), and while many of the names were familiar, I did not have a good sense of their places in the evolution of Roman and European culture before. For those like me with scant knowledge of art history, this is an informative and illuminating read. This was Hughes' last book (he died in 2012), but I have a copy of his Barcelona on the shelf which I am anxious to get to.

This is a book about the history and art history of Rome. It is a good introduction, but probably not for those already in the know. There is a lot of ground to cover and the joins, sometimes, creak a little, as Hughes jumps from the Roman era to the papacy to the Grand Tour. He is, however, a highly entertaining writer. He can tackle the grand sweep and sprinkle that with nuggets of original information, ideas and commentary. He closes with a highly amusing and poignant rant that somehow caps the work in a very Roman fashion. ( )