Rome
Truly inspirational: the hospital diary of Hanif Kureishi
‘My world has been smashed...and there is nothing I can do about’, writes Kureishi of the freak accident in 2022 that has left him paralysed. ‘But I will not go under. I will make something of it’
Conrad Black adheres firmly to the ‘great man’ view of history
The movers and shakers of Volume I of his projected history of the world are Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar and Hannibal rather than any socio-economic forces
Everyday life in the Eternal City: Roman Stories, by Jhumpa Lahiri, reviewed
Each story circles around events both big and small, such as lunch at a simple trattoria, a birthday party, a summer holiday or the funeral of a friend
Fighting every inch of the way: the Italian Campaign of 1943
When Allied forces landed at Salerno on 9 September, they expected an easy run to Rome. But the intelligence proved dangerously faulty, as James Holland explains
Enthralling: BBC4’s Colosseum reviewed
In the year 2023, the Neo-Roman Empire was at the height of its powers. A potentially restive populace was kept…
‘I always made an awkward bow’: John Keats’s poignant farewell
On Sunday 17 September 1820, John Keats and his travelling companion, the young painter Joseph Severn, set sail for Italy,…
Raphael – saint or hustler?
Laura Gascoigne dishes the dirt on Raphael
Is it an exaggeration to talk of a ‘gender war’?
According to Nina Power’s forceful and rather unusual What Do Men Want?, we in the West are currently engaged in…
How Rome’s rubbish became a political problem
‘Excommunication,’ reads a stone plaque on the wall of the church of St Theodore in Rome, ‘and a fine of…
Tales from my private jet
Gstaad I was very sad to read of Rupert Hambro’s death. I didn’t know him well, but first met him…
An elegy on the end of elegance
Gstaad During these dark, endless periods of lockdown, let’s take a trip down memory lane to a time when we…
A Chaucerian tale: Pilgrims, by Matthew Kneale, reviewed
Matthew Kneale is much drawn to people of the past. In his award-winning English Passengers, he captured the sensibilities of…
It’s still impossible for Horst Wächter to recognise his father as a Nazi war criminal
In 1926, while putting in place the repressive laws and decrees that would define his dictatorship, Mussolini appointed a new…
For a solution to the backstop, team up like Rome and Carthage
The EU is demanding that, in return for a new deal, the UK must come up with a solution to…
How Boris’s Roman predecessors took back control
The Tories, allegedly a ‘one-nation’ party, are currently imposing Brexit on a divided nation. As a result, some Tory MPs…
Angels through the ages
A good question for your upcoming Lent quiz: where are angels mentioned in the Nicene Creed? I asked this at…
Why I won’t be turning Catholic just yet
I didn’t get an audience with the Pope when I visited Rome last weekend. But given that he’s a borderline…
Turning marble into cushions and stone into flesh: the magic of Gian Lorenzo Bernini
Seventeenth-century Roman art at its fullblown, operatic peak often proves too rich for puritanical northern tastes. And no artist was…
When in Rome…
I know I keep saying that in Decline of the West terms we’re all currently living in Rome, circa 400…
A beautiful place to die: Italy and the Romantic poets
People can be mightily protective of their Romantic poets. When I worked at the Keats Shelley House, overlooking the Spanish…
Sex, violence and anticlimax in 16 (very short) chapters
‘Now I am a mother and a married woman, but not long ago I led a life of crime,’ begins…
Are Egypt’s obelisks more stunning even than the pyramids?
On the banks of the River Thames in central London, an ancient Egyptian obelisk, known as Cleopatra’s Needle, reaches towards…
Following Jesus’s followers
In his new book Apostle Tom Bissell has an advantage over writers who go looking for Jesus: he can start…
Gifts from beyond the grave — from Virgil and Seamus Heaney
Andrew Motion finds a touching parallel between Virgil’s unfinished Aeneid and Seamus Heaney’s barely finished translation of Book VI
