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The Narrative of Trajan's Column
'When the last fire goes out, time too will be finished'
Italo Calvino was one of the most joyful and imaginative writers of the twentieth century. Here he muses on what the things we leave behind - whether waxworks or ancient graffiti, enigmatic maps or a crumbling Roman column - tell us about the greater truths of the world, space and time.
One of twenty new books in the bestselling Penguin Great Ideas series. This new selection showcases a diverse list of thinkers who have helped shape our world today, from anarchists to stoics, feminists to prophets, satirists to Zen Buddhists.
Italo Calvino was one of the most joyful and imaginative writers of the twentieth century. Here he muses on what the things we leave behind - whether waxworks or ancient graffiti, enigmatic maps or a crumbling Roman column - tell us about the greater truths of the world, space and time.
One of twenty new books in the bestselling Penguin Great Ideas series. This new selection showcases a diverse list of thinkers who have helped shape our world today, from anarchists to stoics, feminists to prophets, satirists to Zen Buddhists.
99 pages, Paperback
Published September 24, 2020
17 people are currently reading
216 people want to read
About the author
Italo Calvino
546 books8,902 followersItalo Calvino was born in Cuba and grew up in Italy. He was a journalist and writer of short stories and novels. His best known works include the Our Ancestors trilogy (1952-1959), the Cosmicomics collection of short stories (1965), and the novels Invisible Cities (1972) and If On a Winter's Night a Traveler (1979).
His style is not easy to classify; much of his writing has an air reminiscent to that of fantastical fairy tales (Our Ancestors, Cosmicomics), although sometimes his writing is more "realistic" and in the scenic mode of observation (Difficult Loves, for example). Some of his writing has been called postmodern, reflecting on literature and the act of reading, while some has been labeled magical realist, others fables, others simply "modern". He wrote: "My working method has more often than not involved the subtraction of weight. I have tried to remove weight, sometimes from people, sometimes from heavenly bodies, sometimes from cities; above all I have tried to remove weight from the structure of stories and from language."
His style is not easy to classify; much of his writing has an air reminiscent to that of fantastical fairy tales (Our Ancestors, Cosmicomics), although sometimes his writing is more "realistic" and in the scenic mode of observation (Difficult Loves, for example). Some of his writing has been called postmodern, reflecting on literature and the act of reading, while some has been labeled magical realist, others fables, others simply "modern". He wrote: "My working method has more often than not involved the subtraction of weight. I have tried to remove weight, sometimes from people, sometimes from heavenly bodies, sometimes from cities; above all I have tried to remove weight from the structure of stories and from language."
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
October 14, 2025
Italo Calvino writes about the wonders that mankind leaves behind when they pass on. He informs the reader about Italian architecture and Persian religion and humanity with equal authority and grace. He's a lovely, kind writer whose further works I will look forward to reading in the near future.
January 14, 2024
Ovu malu knjižicu, punu ideja, sam naravno kupio u Rimu, nakon obilaska Trajanovog stuba.
Naslovni esej govori o ovom veličanstvenom spomeniku (Kalvino čak kaže: "Certainly the most extraordinary monument that Roman antiquity has left us.") i radi to što kaže u naslovu - opisuje narativ stuba, penjući se 200 metara spiralno uz njega, nešto što nama od dole naravno nije moguće.
Stub je posvećen Trajanovim pobedama u Dačiji, a Kalvino u eseju piše i o rimskim vojnicima (hiljade i hiljade njih predstavljano na stubu velikom preciznošću, tako da je narativ bio veoma koristan vojnim istoričarima), načinom na koji su prikazani varvari (dostojanstvenije od očekivanog, i njihov svakodnevni život pre sukoba, ali i kasnije dok beže ili posle poraza), Trajanom (prikazan je 60 puta), bitkama - ali osim samom pričom, bavi se i time kako su ga izgradili (nije baš jasno), a i zbog čega je priča predstavljena tako da je nedostupna gledaocima sa zemlje (u antičkom Rimu je stub bio okružen visokim zgradama Foruma, ali su one bile suviše udaljene da bismo iz njih mogli da pratimo narativ stuba).
Da sam dobio samo taj esej, vredelo bi. Ali esej How New The New World Was, koji govori o tome kako su Evropljani u 16. veku videli i razumeli novi svet - ali i o tome kako generalno gledamo na nešto novo - je takođe tu, i verovatno je najbolji u ovoj zbirci.
U eseju The Written City: Inscriptions and Graffiti vraća se u antički Rim i piše o velikoj količini teksta koju su stari Rimljani gledali svaki dan na ulicama svojih gradova. Tekstovi su bili svuda oko nas, a onda, u srednjem veku, napisi su odjednom nestali.
Tu su i eseji o srednjevekovnim gradovima, o istoriji kreatora geografskih mapa, o mošeji u Isfahanu... Sve zajedno, 12 eseja, koji nam pokazuju da Kalvino nije veoma interesantan samo kao romanopisac (velika preporuka za originalan Ako jedne zimske noći neki putnik), već i u ovakvim kraćim pogledima na istoriju, umetnost, religiju, ali i generalno na svet oko nas.
Naslovni esej govori o ovom veličanstvenom spomeniku (Kalvino čak kaže: "Certainly the most extraordinary monument that Roman antiquity has left us.") i radi to što kaže u naslovu - opisuje narativ stuba, penjući se 200 metara spiralno uz njega, nešto što nama od dole naravno nije moguće.
Stub je posvećen Trajanovim pobedama u Dačiji, a Kalvino u eseju piše i o rimskim vojnicima (hiljade i hiljade njih predstavljano na stubu velikom preciznošću, tako da je narativ bio veoma koristan vojnim istoričarima), načinom na koji su prikazani varvari (dostojanstvenije od očekivanog, i njihov svakodnevni život pre sukoba, ali i kasnije dok beže ili posle poraza), Trajanom (prikazan je 60 puta), bitkama - ali osim samom pričom, bavi se i time kako su ga izgradili (nije baš jasno), a i zbog čega je priča predstavljena tako da je nedostupna gledaocima sa zemlje (u antičkom Rimu je stub bio okružen visokim zgradama Foruma, ali su one bile suviše udaljene da bismo iz njih mogli da pratimo narativ stuba).
Da sam dobio samo taj esej, vredelo bi. Ali esej How New The New World Was, koji govori o tome kako su Evropljani u 16. veku videli i razumeli novi svet - ali i o tome kako generalno gledamo na nešto novo - je takođe tu, i verovatno je najbolji u ovoj zbirci.
U eseju The Written City: Inscriptions and Graffiti vraća se u antički Rim i piše o velikoj količini teksta koju su stari Rimljani gledali svaki dan na ulicama svojih gradova. Tekstovi su bili svuda oko nas, a onda, u srednjem veku, napisi su odjednom nestali.
Tu su i eseji o srednjevekovnim gradovima, o istoriji kreatora geografskih mapa, o mošeji u Isfahanu... Sve zajedno, 12 eseja, koji nam pokazuju da Kalvino nije veoma interesantan samo kao romanopisac (velika preporuka za originalan Ako jedne zimske noći neki putnik), već i u ovakvim kraćim pogledima na istoriju, umetnost, religiju, ali i generalno na svet oko nas.
November 12, 2023
4.5 stars. a brilliant little collection, erudite and full of character.
July 8, 2022
calvino da GOAT no CAP on GOD bless UP
March 31, 2021
Just the titles of so many of these pieces are mouthwateringly attractive -- 'The Museum of Wax Monsters', 'The Adventures of Three Clockmakers and Three Automata', 'The Sculptures and the Nomads' -- and their contents don't disappoint either. Martin McLaughlin has done a great job on the translation as far as I can tell because the sentences feel newly minted, as though directly from the hand of the author to the reader.
Except there are clues that these are not recent writings: references are made to a time before the Iranian Revolution and to a few other events that locate them firmly to a time before the author's premature death in 1985 -- he was only in his 63rd year.
But it is Calvino's gimlet observations, marshalling of details, and philosophical reflections that render his comments eternal and paradoxically contemporary, meaning that these dozen pieces will be for me a joy to revisit at some future date.
Publishing context comes first. These twelve essays were selected from his Collezione di sabbia which first appeared the year before his death, to be copyrighted by his estate as late as 2002. Translated and published by Penguin in 2013, these dozen items were then made available in a slim volume of less than 100 pages in their Great Ideas series in 2020.
The essays are essentially either discursive reviews of books, overviews of exhibitions visited, or meditations on historic sites in Iran seen before the events of 1978. So, in order, we are given a guided tour of Paris exhibitions entitled 'America Seen by Europe', 'Maps and Images of the Earth' and 'Dr P Spitzner' s Great Anatomical and Ethnological Museum'; then Calvino relates his up close view of Trajan's Column when it was covered in scaffolding. He then muses on a scholarly article about the place of graffiti in an urban environment, and another on how the city of the Roman world evolved into a different space in the Christian Middle Ages, with its different public foci.
A study of Swiss automata entitled Androids next attracts his attention, followed by The Dictionary of Imaginary Places and the National Museum of Tokyo; but it is the final three pieces -- on the Islamic mihrab, the Zoroastrian perpetual flame, and the ruins of Persepolis -- that he emerges from his study and the exhibition gallery to consider notions from outside which have nevertheless had huge impacts on European thinking and concepts.
I don't know how or why these particular pieces were selected from the 38 essays in Collection of Sand, but in toto they have a logic. They range from the New World to the Old and then on to the Middle East via Japan; they deal with notional and real spaces, constructed narratives like comic strips, with artefacts such as maps, wax models, clockwork figures and swords. Calvino draws out what these spaces, narratives and objects signify, both collectively and personally, and he does it eruditely without ever, it seems to me talking down to the intelligent reader.
So he talks about the ubiquity of graffiti in Roman cities and how they differ from modern examples; he contrasts the stereotypical images of Italy produced for the tourist with the native's view; he compares the processions in the bas-reliefs of Persepolis with lines of tourists and the journeying of nomads between the Persian Gulf and the Caspian Sea. The most striking image, and one which encapsulates much of what he writes here, is the mihrab, the empty niche in a mosque usually seen through a highly decorated opening, which informs the faithful of the direction of Mecca to which they turn when they pray:
But is he correct?
Not all of the essays paint so melancholy a picture, in spite of allusions to entropy, or early explorers' inability to recognise the new except in terms of what they'd already experienced. When Calvino discusses imaginary lands he notes that minor literary fiction can reveal "endless resources for creating poetic myths"; he ponders the great mystery that surrounds Trajan's Column, "a column so high and totally covered in scenes that have been sculpted in minute details but cannot be seen from the ground"; and he notes our fascination with cartography as a precursor to Freudian notions of depth psychology.
Though occasionally prosaic Calvino is rarely dull, and in focusing his gaze on human artefacts -- whether architecture or artworks -- he give them a kind of apotheosis, not as idols on a plinth to be worshipped but as objects to contemplate and thereby consider the mystery of things.
Except there are clues that these are not recent writings: references are made to a time before the Iranian Revolution and to a few other events that locate them firmly to a time before the author's premature death in 1985 -- he was only in his 63rd year.
But it is Calvino's gimlet observations, marshalling of details, and philosophical reflections that render his comments eternal and paradoxically contemporary, meaning that these dozen pieces will be for me a joy to revisit at some future date.
Publishing context comes first. These twelve essays were selected from his Collezione di sabbia which first appeared the year before his death, to be copyrighted by his estate as late as 2002. Translated and published by Penguin in 2013, these dozen items were then made available in a slim volume of less than 100 pages in their Great Ideas series in 2020.
The essays are essentially either discursive reviews of books, overviews of exhibitions visited, or meditations on historic sites in Iran seen before the events of 1978. So, in order, we are given a guided tour of Paris exhibitions entitled 'America Seen by Europe', 'Maps and Images of the Earth' and 'Dr P Spitzner' s Great Anatomical and Ethnological Museum'; then Calvino relates his up close view of Trajan's Column when it was covered in scaffolding. He then muses on a scholarly article about the place of graffiti in an urban environment, and another on how the city of the Roman world evolved into a different space in the Christian Middle Ages, with its different public foci.
A study of Swiss automata entitled Androids next attracts his attention, followed by The Dictionary of Imaginary Places and the National Museum of Tokyo; but it is the final three pieces -- on the Islamic mihrab, the Zoroastrian perpetual flame, and the ruins of Persepolis -- that he emerges from his study and the exhibition gallery to consider notions from outside which have nevertheless had huge impacts on European thinking and concepts.
I don't know how or why these particular pieces were selected from the 38 essays in Collection of Sand, but in toto they have a logic. They range from the New World to the Old and then on to the Middle East via Japan; they deal with notional and real spaces, constructed narratives like comic strips, with artefacts such as maps, wax models, clockwork figures and swords. Calvino draws out what these spaces, narratives and objects signify, both collectively and personally, and he does it eruditely without ever, it seems to me talking down to the intelligent reader.
So he talks about the ubiquity of graffiti in Roman cities and how they differ from modern examples; he contrasts the stereotypical images of Italy produced for the tourist with the native's view; he compares the processions in the bas-reliefs of Persepolis with lines of tourists and the journeying of nomads between the Persian Gulf and the Caspian Sea. The most striking image, and one which encapsulates much of what he writes here, is the mihrab, the empty niche in a mosque usually seen through a highly decorated opening, which informs the faithful of the direction of Mecca to which they turn when they pray:
[T]he idea of perfection which art pursues, the wisdom accumulated in writing, the dream of satisfying every desire that is expressed in the luxury of ornaments, all of these point towards one single meaning, celebrate one foundational principle, entail one single final object. And this is an object which does not exist. Its sole quality is that of not being there. One cannot even give it a name.
But is he correct?
This is what I thought I had understood in that distant journey of mine to Isfahan: that the most important things in the world are the empty spaces. [...] What I see now from Iran are very different images: with no empty spaces, it is full of crowds shouting and gesturing in unison, darkened by the blackness of cloaks, which extends everywhere, full of a fanatical tension that knows no respite or peace. I saw nothing of all this when I was contemplating the mihrab.
Not all of the essays paint so melancholy a picture, in spite of allusions to entropy, or early explorers' inability to recognise the new except in terms of what they'd already experienced. When Calvino discusses imaginary lands he notes that minor literary fiction can reveal "endless resources for creating poetic myths"; he ponders the great mystery that surrounds Trajan's Column, "a column so high and totally covered in scenes that have been sculpted in minute details but cannot be seen from the ground"; and he notes our fascination with cartography as a precursor to Freudian notions of depth psychology.
Though occasionally prosaic Calvino is rarely dull, and in focusing his gaze on human artefacts -- whether architecture or artworks -- he give them a kind of apotheosis, not as idols on a plinth to be worshipped but as objects to contemplate and thereby consider the mystery of things.
January 25, 2022
'’Often the commitment that men invest in activities that seem totally gratuitous, with no other aim in mind except enjoyment or the satisfaction of solving a difficult problem, turns out to be essential in an area that nobody had foreseen and has far-reaching consequences. This is true for poetry and art, just as it is for science and technology. Amusement has always been the great moving force behind culture.’’
Det här är en så fin liten bok! I tolv essäer tar Calvino med läsaren på en resa tillbaka i tiden; han betraktar både världen i stort och gör även särskilda djupdykningar in i ögonblick han själv varit med om. Ibland beskriver han en plats; ibland gör han mothugg till sådant han ej gillar i samhället (som graffiti); ibland belyser han något spännande författarskap och ibland gör han utläggningar kring världens alla små mysterium. Men oavsett vad det handlar om så berör han det hela med ett genuint intresse. Calvino har en sån otrolig förmåga att på ett levande vis måla upp både händelser och miljöer genom sina texter. Jag får till exempel TYDLIGA bilder i huvudet av hur jag springer igenom nationalmuseet i Tokyo, och trängs tillsammans med en hel hop av människor för att betrakta olika artefakter och konstverk. Och när Calvino själv sedan börjar avrunda sin berättelse vill jag helst stanna kvar. Jag fullkomligt älskar detta med honom. Mmm, jättefint :) 🤍
Det här är en så fin liten bok! I tolv essäer tar Calvino med läsaren på en resa tillbaka i tiden; han betraktar både världen i stort och gör även särskilda djupdykningar in i ögonblick han själv varit med om. Ibland beskriver han en plats; ibland gör han mothugg till sådant han ej gillar i samhället (som graffiti); ibland belyser han något spännande författarskap och ibland gör han utläggningar kring världens alla små mysterium. Men oavsett vad det handlar om så berör han det hela med ett genuint intresse. Calvino har en sån otrolig förmåga att på ett levande vis måla upp både händelser och miljöer genom sina texter. Jag får till exempel TYDLIGA bilder i huvudet av hur jag springer igenom nationalmuseet i Tokyo, och trängs tillsammans med en hel hop av människor för att betrakta olika artefakter och konstverk. Och när Calvino själv sedan börjar avrunda sin berättelse vill jag helst stanna kvar. Jag fullkomligt älskar detta med honom. Mmm, jättefint :) 🤍
December 28, 2023
A treasure trove of Calvino's essays for the last days of the anniversary year of his birth, and an essay that shows his empathy and humanity: https://anzlitlovers.com/2023/12/27/t...
and focussing on the first essay:
In ‘How New the New World Was’, Calvino explores how the 15th century discovery of the New World impacted how Europeans ‘experienced’ the world. He had been to a 1975 exhibition in Paris: ‘America Seen by Europe‘, which comprised 350 paintings, prints and objects representing European images of the New World, from the earliest period after the voyages of Columbus.
https://anzlitlovers.com/2023/12/24/h...
and focussing on the first essay:
In ‘How New the New World Was’, Calvino explores how the 15th century discovery of the New World impacted how Europeans ‘experienced’ the world. He had been to a 1975 exhibition in Paris: ‘America Seen by Europe‘, which comprised 350 paintings, prints and objects representing European images of the New World, from the earliest period after the voyages of Columbus.
https://anzlitlovers.com/2023/12/24/h...
December 5, 2024
probably need to reread. ideas mixed with moving trains.
Read
January 4, 2025favourite essay was the flames within the flames
May 9, 2021
A little book to add to Calvino’s fame.
August 28, 2023
Calvino has a real talent for taking seemingly disparate concepts and tying them together in a way that seems effortless. In short, nicely written prose and a classically cool Calvino outlook
March 15, 2023
Very little to do with just Trajan's Column (a Roman monument and the 4th of 12 stories) and much more to do with all of Calvino's observations and insights into history as he travels and describes ancient places, sculptures, inventions, wax monsters, maps and more.
One of the most moving passages comes toward the end when he visits a mosque in Iran and observes the Mazdeans worshipping an ancient flame - he ponders the fate of the "liveable and visible worlds" that will turn to dust when the the universe decomposes in a cloud of heat. He concludes that time is like fire: "at times it flares up in impetuous bursts of heat, at times it smoulders buried in slow carbonization of epochs, at times it creeps and spreads out in unexpected, lightning quick zig-zags, but it always points toward it's only end..."
Is that end death? Calvino goes a step farther with the fire metaphor: the end is "to consume everything and to be consumed" (pg 88).
In typical Calvino style, he opens up new worlds for us readers so that we do not remain the clueless tourists idling by historical artifacts - he gifts us with a glimpse into the details he notices and the insights he posits.
"Perhaps a New World opens up every day and we don't see it" (pg 2).
One of the most moving passages comes toward the end when he visits a mosque in Iran and observes the Mazdeans worshipping an ancient flame - he ponders the fate of the "liveable and visible worlds" that will turn to dust when the the universe decomposes in a cloud of heat. He concludes that time is like fire: "at times it flares up in impetuous bursts of heat, at times it smoulders buried in slow carbonization of epochs, at times it creeps and spreads out in unexpected, lightning quick zig-zags, but it always points toward it's only end..."
Is that end death? Calvino goes a step farther with the fire metaphor: the end is "to consume everything and to be consumed" (pg 88).
In typical Calvino style, he opens up new worlds for us readers so that we do not remain the clueless tourists idling by historical artifacts - he gifts us with a glimpse into the details he notices and the insights he posits.
"Perhaps a New World opens up every day and we don't see it" (pg 2).
May 7, 2024
3.5 rounded down.
I'm a huge fan of Italo Calvino and studied Classics as part of my undergrad, so I was very excited about this book! My mistake was reading it in one sitting; this feels more like the sort of book you read in doses, digesting each chapter's message before moving to the next.
It has some very interesting, if at times dated, essays that all connect to larger themes of the past, civilization, and the mark we as humans leave behind. In particular, I enjoyed the last three essays; 'The Mihrab', 'The Flames Within the Flames', and 'The Sculptures and the Nomads' (although I did also enjoy 'The Written City'!). The last one in particular ruminates on death and forms of immortality with stunning descriptions of carved figures juxtaposed with modern-day nomads.
That being said, the middle of the collection lagged for me, which made it difficult to fully immerse myself in this book the way I have some of Calvino's other works.
I'm a huge fan of Italo Calvino and studied Classics as part of my undergrad, so I was very excited about this book! My mistake was reading it in one sitting; this feels more like the sort of book you read in doses, digesting each chapter's message before moving to the next.
It has some very interesting, if at times dated, essays that all connect to larger themes of the past, civilization, and the mark we as humans leave behind. In particular, I enjoyed the last three essays; 'The Mihrab', 'The Flames Within the Flames', and 'The Sculptures and the Nomads' (although I did also enjoy 'The Written City'!). The last one in particular ruminates on death and forms of immortality with stunning descriptions of carved figures juxtaposed with modern-day nomads.
That being said, the middle of the collection lagged for me, which made it difficult to fully immerse myself in this book the way I have some of Calvino's other works.
March 31, 2023
Calvino's comedic wit, literary brilliance, and philosophical explorativeness shine through as always. Lots of great thoughts to diffuse from these essays.
The only complaint I have about this is that it's too short... good thing it's but an excerpt of the entirety of Constellations of Sand!
The only complaint I have about this is that it's too short... good thing it's but an excerpt of the entirety of Constellations of Sand!
June 15, 2023
Interesting for the essays in Iran and the first essay about America and Europe. Few of the essays included feel a bit of an ill fit for Calvino’s messages on the purpose of art and the inevitable finiteness of it.
August 9, 2025
Found in used spiritual bookstore in London. Great mix of history, literature, politics, and culture. It was appropriate after a month’s worth of museum and art exhibit crawling. Connected human reality with often seemly static historical images.
January 22, 2023
Either I am uninterested in the topic or the author found a way to make it uninteresting by the half way through the story…
June 1, 2024
Thoroughly enjoyed this book
Despite dense subject matter, still an effortlessly light read.
Was captivated by the world as seen through Calvino's eyes and found myself immersed in his story telling
Wonderful escapist literature
Will revisit
Despite dense subject matter, still an effortlessly light read.
Was captivated by the world as seen through Calvino's eyes and found myself immersed in his story telling
Wonderful escapist literature
Will revisit
Read
June 19, 2025a good closing to my time abroad
March 10, 2024
Interesting essays that focus on art / museum exhibits. Inspires a critical eye, but the essays end up feeling like they are in a moment I already passed.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews