The Smiles of Rome: A Literary Companion for Readers and Travelers

by Susan Cahill (editor)

Take a Roman holiday with some of the world’s greatest writers

Explore the Palatine with Elizabeth Bowen. Visit the temple of the Vestal Virgins with Georgina Masson. Analyze Michelangelo’s Moses with Sigmund Freud. Stroll through ancient streets with Goethe and with Henry James. Share Alice Steinbach’s midnight epiphany on a shabby hotel balcony. Learn the art of love from Ovid. Visit villas and gardens with Edith Wharton. Enjoy Rome’s myriad moods and pleasures with Robert Browning, Eleanor Clark, Susan Vreeland, and many others.

An irresistible collection of writing about one of the world’s most beloved destinations, The Smiles of Rome spans the centuries from ancient times to the present day. Each essay resonates with the richness and turmoil of the past and overflows with a great wealth of fascinating facts and intriguing tidbits for today’s avid readers and travelers.

“Rome,” writes Susan Cahill, “has the power to blow your mind and heart.” This delicious, many-layered collection honoring the city that is the heart and soul of European civilization has the same power to thrill.

Genres: Italy, Travel, Nonfiction, History

336 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

SUSAN CAHILL has published several travel books on France, Italy, and Ireland, including Sacred Paris, Hidden Gardens of Paris and The Streets of Paris. She is the editor of the bestselling Women and Fiction series and author of the novel Earth Angels. She spends a few months in Paris every year. MARION RANOUX, a native Parisienne, is an experienced freelance photographer and translator into French of Czech literature.

Reviews

[Hon Lady Selene · Rating 5 out of 5]

' "Speak to me," Michelangelo is said to have challenged his statue of Moses; and indeed, the sculptures of Rome do speak.'

Excellent selection of texts by some big guns to bring about a sort of portrait of Rome from ancient to modern times. It made me smile.

Some highlights include:

* Marguerite Yourcenar's Memoirs of Hadrian , a form of a farewell letter from the Emperor Hadrian to his successor, the young Marcus Aurelius.

"Rome the crucible, but also the furnace, the boiling metal, the hammer, and the anvil as well, visible proof of the changes and repetitions of history."

* Simon Schama's Landscape and Memory studies the subject of flowing water in Nature in the sculptures of Bernini, especially Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi:

"The Piazza Navona preserves in its oval shape the stadium of the Agonale Circus, where, during the reign of the emperor Domitian, games were regularly held. in 1652, Pope Innocent inaugurated the custom of the piazza, by opening the sluices at the base of the Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi in the hot month of August and allowing the waters of the Acqua Vergine to flood the square. In the long oval of the Piazza Navona, he was, in effect, finally baptizing the pagan Circo Agonale, creating a sacred river in the heart of Rome, a stone's throw from the Tiber bend."

* Elenor Clark's Rome and a Villa is a portrait of the Protestant Cemetery where Keats and Shelley are buried.

Before Shelley died, only a year after Keats, he wrote of this place, "It might make one in love with death to think that one should be buried in so sweet a place." His heart is buried here, in a grave against the rear wall opposite the entrance, inscribed cor cordium or "Heart of Hearts." He wrote his elegiac poem "Adonais" in memory of his friend Keats:

Go thou to Rome, at once the Paradise,
The grave, the city and the wilderness;
And where its wrecks like shattered mountains rise,
And flowering weeds and fragrant copses dress
The bones of Desolation's nakedness
Pass, till the spirit of the spot shall lead
Thy footsteps to a slope of green access
Where, like an infant's smile, over the dead
A light of laughing flowers along the grass is spread.

[Baglady · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tremendous variety of authors / interviews / other writings about Rome, with travel information related to each. Chapters are somewhat disjointed, but treating each chapter as stand-alone rather than integrated helped. Having just returned from Rome, I enjoyed the literary items more than the travel, but I agreed with most of the travel recommendations which by happy accident I had seen. It is also possible to scan the chapter headings and read only those which appeal to the reader.

[Don Harton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed visiting Rome with various authors thru the years. Cahill’s notes at the end of each chapter gave nice insights into specific streets and piazzas and palazzos and churches, as well as trattorias and cafes! This was a gentle introduction to Rome before our visit. Checking the map, some of the cafes look to be still operating.

[Barbara · Rating 3 out of 5]

makes me ready to return to Rome.

[Karen Abbott · Rating 4 out of 5]

I gave this 4 stars as a literary travel guide. I wouldn’t read this book if I wasn’t going to Rome.

[Calene Bybee]

This was a fun book to use while planning a trip to Rome.

[Ella · Rating 4 out of 5]

had a wonderful time reading this for writing rome with prof mccord

[Wendell · Rating 2 out of 5]

Though The Smiles of Rome is one of those books that are classically recommended to travelers to Italy, especially first-time travelers, it struck me as a colossal bore. What becomes obvious is that Cahill made her selections less on literary merit and more on their ability to lend themselves to an itinerary or the frequency with which they mentioned churches, bridges, museums, or other monuments that Cahill wanted to highlight. The result is that the writing is extremely uneven when it isn’t utterly obscure (Freud’s essay on the Moses of Michelangelo is just plain odd, while Browning’s and Vittoria Colonna’s poetry, along with Michelangelo’s sonnets, is just plain dull). Other selections are eccentric and bad-fitting (excerpts from Morante’s History, a few of Peter’s Letters to the Romans, and a strange little interview with Fellini about La Dolce Vita are examples of pieces whose unease in this context is palpable), giving the sense of having been smacked into place with blows of a hammer rather than gentled into the book because of their beauty or appropriateness. Eleanor Clark’s piece on the Protestant Cemetery is readable only because its subject matter is so interesting, though the truth of the matter is that her baffling thickets of clauses and qualifiers are utterly maddening; Updike’s contribution is a genuine nullity, though he is far from the only writer to be included here for his name rather than for the quality or intrinsic interest of the writing that Cahill anthologizes. As a practical matter, The Smiles of Rome was published more than four years ago and its advice about restaurants or museum hours is no longer useful; browse the book in the library for the walking tours at the end of each chapter or cadge its bibliography, but spend your money on another book about Rome.

[Jaleh Rose · Rating 2 out of 5]

I studied abroad in Rome and this book was part of the required reading for the writing class. The book overall struck me as disjointed. All the essays are about Rome, but it can be jarring jumping from one story to the next since this collection includes everything from a excerpt from a novel written in the point of view of Hadrian to an interview with Federico Fellini. The suggestions at the stories are often longer than the stories themselves, and, in my opinion, are not very good ones. I did not read all of this book, but I did read a good chunk of the stories for class, and I did not find any of them interesting. Fellini's interview seemed out of place, Eleanor Clark's musings on the cemetary where Keats is buried is just odd and hard to follow, and Alice Steinbach's dislike for Rome and the subsequent situation she ends up in only led me to wonder about how someone could be so annoying and stupid after having traveled around Europe before ending up in Rome. This was not a good collection of stories.

[Jordyne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great literary compilation of essays, excerpts, reflections on Rome. Includes writings on Ancient, Renaissance and Baroque, Grand Tour period. Favorites: John Updike's Twin Beds in Rome, Muriel Spark's My Rome, Alice Steinbach's Piazza di Spagna.

[Mary Step · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful book, incredible preparation and companion on a trip to Rome.

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good ideas for places to visit in Rome.