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Whispering City: Rome and Its Histories
An accomplished Italianist looks beyond Rome's storied facades to offer insight into the many histories of one of the world's best-loved cities
In Civilization and Its Discontents , Sigmund Freud claimed that Rome must be comprehended as "not a human dwelling place but a mental entity," in which the palaces of the Caesars still stand alongside modern apartment buildings in layers of brick, mortar, and memory. "The observer would need merely to shift the focus of his eyes, perhaps, or change his position, in order to call up a view of either the one or the other." In this one-of-a-kind book, historian Richard Bosworth accepts Freud's challenge, drawing upon his expertise in Italian pasts to explore the many layers of history found within the Eternal City. Often beginning his analysis with sites and monuments that can still be found in contemporary Rome, Bosworth expands his scope to review how political groups of different eras—the Catholic Church, makers of the Italian nation, Fascists, and "ordinary" Romans (be they citizens, immigrants, or tourists)—read meaning into the city around them. Weaving in the city's quintessential figures (Garibaldi, Pius XII, Mussolini, and Berlusconi) and architectural icons (the Vatican, St. Peter's Basilica, the Victor Emmanuel Monument, and EUR) with those forgotten or unknown, Bosworth explores the many histories that whisper their rival and competing messages and seek to impose their truth upon the passing crowds. But as this delightful study will reveal, Rome, that magisterial palimpsest, has never accepted a single reading of its historic meaning.
In Civilization and Its Discontents , Sigmund Freud claimed that Rome must be comprehended as "not a human dwelling place but a mental entity," in which the palaces of the Caesars still stand alongside modern apartment buildings in layers of brick, mortar, and memory. "The observer would need merely to shift the focus of his eyes, perhaps, or change his position, in order to call up a view of either the one or the other." In this one-of-a-kind book, historian Richard Bosworth accepts Freud's challenge, drawing upon his expertise in Italian pasts to explore the many layers of history found within the Eternal City. Often beginning his analysis with sites and monuments that can still be found in contemporary Rome, Bosworth expands his scope to review how political groups of different eras—the Catholic Church, makers of the Italian nation, Fascists, and "ordinary" Romans (be they citizens, immigrants, or tourists)—read meaning into the city around them. Weaving in the city's quintessential figures (Garibaldi, Pius XII, Mussolini, and Berlusconi) and architectural icons (the Vatican, St. Peter's Basilica, the Victor Emmanuel Monument, and EUR) with those forgotten or unknown, Bosworth explores the many histories that whisper their rival and competing messages and seek to impose their truth upon the passing crowds. But as this delightful study will reveal, Rome, that magisterial palimpsest, has never accepted a single reading of its historic meaning.
358 pages, Hardcover
First published April 26, 2011
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About the author
Richard J.B. Bosworth
21 books22 followersA leading expert on modern Italian history, Richard James Boon Bosworth is Emeritus Fellow at Jesus College, Oxford University. He earned a BA and an Hons. MA at the University of Sydney and a PhD at St John’s College, Cambridge. He taught at the University of Sydney from 1969 to 1986, the University of Western Australia from 1987 to 2011 and Reading University from 2007-2011. Bosworth has also been a Visiting Fellow at St. John’s College and Clare Hall, Cambridge, Balliol and All Souls Colleges in Oxford, as well as a Visiting Professor at Trento University in Italy.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 9, 2023
As a prelude to my review of this book I am going to indulge in a slight digression to examine variations in histories and their uses as I have encountered them and it is relevant so be patient with me.
When I was at school in Ireland in the 1970's we learnt in our history lessons quite a lot about the unifications of Italy and Germany and it took me many years, I am embarrassed to admit how many, to realise why. Because the creation/resurrections of the Italian and German nations were a subliminal prelude/justification to the rebirth/resurrection/creation of the Irish state in which I was then living. The intent was to tell us that our story was not a parochial one, but part of a larger European moment - in a sense it was part of a 'historical movement'.
Before I was at school in Ireland I went to grade/primary school in the USA and there, and through my father and general cultural references, I learnt about the great depression and its centrality in the history of the USA in the 1930s. That 'The Depression' in the UK was a considerably different from the experience from that in the USA did not come as quite the surprise as it might have because I had already observed how differently the 1960's flower/power/hippie/youth culture in the USA was from the UK.
When my parents split up and my mother took herself and the children to Ireland we left behind a USA where in 1967 over a hundred thousand young people, many only two or three years older then I was (at the time 12) some the same age had run-away to San Francisco to find/start/create a new world life by turning on and dropping out. It was a country racked by riots, with cities in flames and divisions over civil rights and the war in Viet Nam that viscerally divided families, neighbours, schoolmates, just about everyone. In contrast in the UK the collection of musicians, fashion models, artists and sundry wealthy time wasters who gathered about the King's Road and Carnaby Street didn't even affect the lives of ordinary Londoners never mind the rest of the UK. The 1960's meant completely different things in the USA and UK. As a final prelude to the review I first went to Rome not long after Aldo Moro's body was murdered and it Rome appeared, like so much of Italy, as place outside history, or totally within its own incomprehensible history. It was a city in the midst of the volcano preparing to erupt and it seemed beyond saving or beyond governing - I am pretty sure there was no government for most of the time I was there.
The point of all that is to say that Professor Bosworth, in this book, provides a fascinating examination about not the history of Rome, but what Rome represented to various peoples and groups and how they looked at understood it in different ways. Indirectly it also tells a great deal about why Italy is in so many ways different from other nations and how Rome has actually never really been a capital of anything or at least not for everyone.
History, what it means, what is part of it, what is important is very changeable and a very slippery concept to recapture - hence my personal reminiscence at the beginning of this review. If 'what history is' can be so changeable on a small personal level imagine what it is like with a place like the city Of Rome a city represents so many different things to so many people. Imperial Rome, medieval Rome, Renaissance Rome, Rome of Caesars, Popes, and Nationalists as well as the Rome of the Romantics, the English, the Germans - it played a powerful part in their literature - where would Goethe be without his time in Rome and Italy and for Englishmen it was always the home of the grave of 'one whose name was writ on water'. Bosworth looks at all of them and has fascinating things to say and insights to impart. When I started this book I thought I would read some and skim many of the chapters, well I read them all because they were too compelling and too fascinating.
It is one of the most interesting non conventional history books I have read in a long time.
When I was at school in Ireland in the 1970's we learnt in our history lessons quite a lot about the unifications of Italy and Germany and it took me many years, I am embarrassed to admit how many, to realise why. Because the creation/resurrections of the Italian and German nations were a subliminal prelude/justification to the rebirth/resurrection/creation of the Irish state in which I was then living. The intent was to tell us that our story was not a parochial one, but part of a larger European moment - in a sense it was part of a 'historical movement'.
Before I was at school in Ireland I went to grade/primary school in the USA and there, and through my father and general cultural references, I learnt about the great depression and its centrality in the history of the USA in the 1930s. That 'The Depression' in the UK was a considerably different from the experience from that in the USA did not come as quite the surprise as it might have because I had already observed how differently the 1960's flower/power/hippie/youth culture in the USA was from the UK.
When my parents split up and my mother took herself and the children to Ireland we left behind a USA where in 1967 over a hundred thousand young people, many only two or three years older then I was (at the time 12) some the same age had run-away to San Francisco to find/start/create a new world life by turning on and dropping out. It was a country racked by riots, with cities in flames and divisions over civil rights and the war in Viet Nam that viscerally divided families, neighbours, schoolmates, just about everyone. In contrast in the UK the collection of musicians, fashion models, artists and sundry wealthy time wasters who gathered about the King's Road and Carnaby Street didn't even affect the lives of ordinary Londoners never mind the rest of the UK. The 1960's meant completely different things in the USA and UK. As a final prelude to the review I first went to Rome not long after Aldo Moro's body was murdered and it Rome appeared, like so much of Italy, as place outside history, or totally within its own incomprehensible history. It was a city in the midst of the volcano preparing to erupt and it seemed beyond saving or beyond governing - I am pretty sure there was no government for most of the time I was there.
The point of all that is to say that Professor Bosworth, in this book, provides a fascinating examination about not the history of Rome, but what Rome represented to various peoples and groups and how they looked at understood it in different ways. Indirectly it also tells a great deal about why Italy is in so many ways different from other nations and how Rome has actually never really been a capital of anything or at least not for everyone.
History, what it means, what is part of it, what is important is very changeable and a very slippery concept to recapture - hence my personal reminiscence at the beginning of this review. If 'what history is' can be so changeable on a small personal level imagine what it is like with a place like the city Of Rome a city represents so many different things to so many people. Imperial Rome, medieval Rome, Renaissance Rome, Rome of Caesars, Popes, and Nationalists as well as the Rome of the Romantics, the English, the Germans - it played a powerful part in their literature - where would Goethe be without his time in Rome and Italy and for Englishmen it was always the home of the grave of 'one whose name was writ on water'. Bosworth looks at all of them and has fascinating things to say and insights to impart. When I started this book I thought I would read some and skim many of the chapters, well I read them all because they were too compelling and too fascinating.
It is one of the most interesting non conventional history books I have read in a long time.
August 29, 2012
Definitely for "Roma-amanti" rather than of general interest, but an interesting read. And ideas relevant to other histories. I've heard it said that history is written by the victors, but I never thought before about how it's rewritten, reinterpreted, and reimagined by successive victors (and wanna-bes).
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews