Rome's (concise) Blue Guide.

Following my post on Rome's Blue Guide, those nice folks from Somerset Books (who publish the Blue Guides) sent me a copy of the brand new concise Blue Guide to Rome.

Generally, I love the Blue Guides - nothing comes close for the tourist who desires a "cultural" guide. My old (and not especially travel-handy) guide to Rome has had such heavy use that it's all held together by sticky tape - yet it's a testament to it's quality that it holds up ever strong, despite the beating it's taken.

First impressions of the new concise guide were very positive. The most noticeable thing is the reduction in size (it is, after all, a concise guide), to much more handy dimensions and weight. Although it was no real chore to crack out the weightier bigger brother of the concise guide - the new one will be much easier to use when "on site" in Rome.

The quality of the production is the next thing that jumps out at you. The cover is sturdy, tactile and pleasing to the touch. The pages remain glossy and smooth ones used in all Blue Guides, and the printing on them is clear and easy to read.

The contents of the guide are, as they back cover says, a "distilled" version of the full guide, which is essentially true - all the most important places to visit are included, while some of the periphery sites (maybe an unfair term) are not present.

The organisation follows a similar pattern to the full guide - in discussing a geographical area and everything of interest in it, followed by the next, adjacent, part of the city. For me it's the best and only way to organise the content - because it allows one to find a particular area of the city and see everything of interest within it.

The introduction is brief and omits much of the information found in the full guide, but that's really no problem for a concise guide. The biggest chunk is taken up by a historical sketch of the city, which is a newer version than that included in the full guide. There is little difference between the two - save length, and in my opinion both are well written and informative.

As mentioned in my previous post, the full guide is a little outdated now (primarily because of the new entrance procedures to the Forum Romanum, Colosseum and Palatine Hill). The new concise guide has all of this updated - which is essential in my opinion because the new procedure is quite different, and requires a bit of planning to pull off successfully (avoiding queues, busy periods etc).

The section of the guide on the Forum and it's surroundings is as excellent as before, but it is bolstered by the addition of several small colourful images which help break up the written descriptions a little. This applies also to the sections covering Ostia and the Via Appia - wonderful photographs add much to the guide.

I was also very happy to see that the EUR has now been incorporated into the main body of the guide. I know it may not be an especially aesthetically pleasing area, but it is aesthetically interesting and the Square Colosseum and the Museum of Roman Civilisation are especially fascinating (not least for the enormous model of Rome in the 4th Century).

One of the most useful new features is that each section has a little box featuring places to eat. It's brief, but a very nice addition, and conforms to the guides aim of being useful "on site".

Overall, then, the concise guide is just as excellent as it's bigger relation, and by my reckoning, it's still the only guide you really need. It's excellently written (by Alta Macadam) and the quality of the book's production itself is second to none.

The new size means that it somewhat supersedes the bigger version as THE guide to take on a trip to Rome. My personal plan is to take both and have the concise version "on site" and the larger version in the hotel room - having every cultural angle covered, so to speak.

As the new concise guide answers all my (admittedly minor) criticisms of the full guide, I must concede that I can find no real fault with it. Obviously it lacks the depth of the bigger version, but that's it's intention and can hardly be considered in a bad light. The price is also exceptionally fair, and I can offer no real complaints of any form.

My recommendation: If you're going to Rome - take it!

Note: Many thanks to Mr Tom Howells from the publishers of the Blue Guides for being so generous in providing me with a copy - I will be using it extensively on my next visit.

Here's a picture of my well thumbed full guide and the new concise guide, so that you may see the size difference:

Rome's Blue Guide.

During my undergraduate degree, I was required to spend a minimum of three weeks travelling around the ancient sites of the Mediterranean. Prior to departure, the classics department recommend the purchase of the Blue Guide to Rome for anyone planning a visit to the eternal city. Sufficed to say I bought it and have been using it ever since.

Styled as a cultural guide (I dislike that term, but as far as it's useful and can be applied - this is the book for it), it's a weighty 624 pages of in depth information about all the cultural treasures of Rome. I've used it 4 or 5 times in visits to Rome, and it's been totally invaluable. So much so that my copy is now dog eared and held together by sticky tape.

The main author is Alta Macadam, who lives in Florence and has a rich history of living and working in Italy. She is supplemented, on history, art history and architecture by Nigel McGilchrist, Charles Freeman and Mark Roberts - all of whom have huge experience of Rome, academic history and Italy more generally. The result of such informed persons writing the guide means that it's general intelligence, cultural awareness and depth is unparalleled by the more popular lines of travel guides.

On matters of organisation: the guide opens with a short but scene-setting introduction, followed by a concise and relatively academic historical sketch of the city from it's foundation to it's present day state. It's top heavy with regards the classical period, but it offers a good overview of the city's history over some (almost!) 3000 years. This historical sketch also has a nice section on the Popes, which is very useful.

The following main body of the guide is divided by geographical area, each of which roughly confines to the hills of ancient Rome (an illustration opens the guide showing each area pg.5). Given the scope of the guide, organising itself geographically was the only viable option, and it works well throughout.

The content itself is marvellous. Macadam has a deep and passionate relationship with the city, and knows it inside out. The depth of cultural commentary and information is excellent, and throughout the guide the aim is not just to signpost and introduce the sites of Rome, but to give them context, a story and set them into the extravagant history of the city.

The areas covering the ancient sites are detailed and interesting - highlighting the history and significance of each monument, area or ruin. There is no "look at this, move on and look at this" style advice suitable for the modern "go to say I've been/seen" tourist, but rather really chunky pieces of information for most sites of interest to the classical visitor. Often little coloured boxes are inserted that give some historical background relevant to the area being discussed - topics include Roman Gods and worship, Obelisks and the Triumph - each of them inherently useful.

The guide is also complete with wonderful illustrations (my favourite being the Carvaggio pair that are in Santa Maria Del Popolo), but not so much as to appear a picture travel book. The images capture something of the stark majesty of the paintings themselves, and add a lovely gloss to any reading of the guide.

Extensive guides to both Ostia and Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli are to be applauded - as many guides have them simply as an addendum - whereas they're an essential part of this one, which is no less than they deserve. Centrale Montemartini, a subsidiary museum (of sorts) of the Capitoline museums, also gets much deserved page space. It's an absolutely wonderful museum, which is often overlooked.

One the flip side, though, there is very little mention of anything remotely related to the E.U.R, and one gets the impression that Macadam dislikes the suburb, and the fascist ties of Rome's past more generally so much that they fall by the way side. That's not to say that the E.U.R is not ugly - it is! - but it holds the so-called Square Colosseum, which is an interesting monument, and also the Museo Della Civiltà Romana which hosts full plaster casts of Trajan's column and also a miniature, to scale (1:250), replica of Rome under the rule of Constantine, built by Italo Gismondi. Both of these attractions are worth the journey out to the E.U.R alone, but they get frightful little mention (they're relegated to a small appendix near the end of the book).

Besides the huge amount of information for the traveller interested beyond the superficial levels, I think the real strength of the work lies in it's awareness of Rome as a truly eternal city, one with so many layers they're difficult to see all at once. In the guide Rome is, at once, the heart of a great classical empire, the home of the Popes, a medieval beacon of research and civilisation, a Papal city state and the capital of a united Italy - and she is, of course, all these things and more.

The guide itself gives the reader a flavour of Rome's embarrassingly rich cultural heritage through it's content, and this in reinforced with little snippets of information or quotes from famous visitors - Goethe, Keats and Shelly among many, many others. In essence, one gets a taste of the city, and can begin to piece together the myriad of things Rome actually is. That, to my mind, is the highest achievement any guide can aim for.

The current 2006 edition is a tad outdated, especially with regards to visiting the Forum, Palatine and Colosseum, but that's not a significant problem, nor really the fault of the author or this guide - it cannot be updated constantly. Most of the information is still relevant, but in Rome, of all cities, any visitor should be aware of the irony contained in the idea of Rome's constancy, but her ever changing face.

In summation, if you're visiting Rome and want a "cultural guide", there really is nothing that compares.

Roman Holiday.

As mentioned below, I recently was in Rome on holiday. I've visited many times before, and so I had only some small goals with regards to visiting historical sites. In actual fact I spent most of the holiday showing my girlfriend around (her first visit) and sometimes forcing upon her visits to places of historical interest.

This post is on that particular topic. In an attempt to stay thematically related to some of my older posts, this one is to be about Augustus. When in Rome I visited both the Ara Pacis and the Mausoleum, of which the latter I would like to speak about.

Although the Mausoleum is closed and regrettably hidden by construction barriers around it's full circumference, it's possible to find a few vantage points that can afford one the pleasure of seeing it. The building is in a rather unfortunate state, and while it should really be one of the central attractions in the city, it's actually rather forgotten. Nevertheless, I enjoyed seeing it anyway.

I derived particular pleasure from the fact that one can still see the holes near the main entrance that were originally used to mount the Res Gestae upon the mausoleum. Given the importance of this document, being able to see these holes gives one the ability to imagine the majesty of the mausoleum as it was after Augustus' death, and despite the general decay of the entire structure, that makes the visit worth every second. I have attached two pictures of the mausoleum to this post, one taken from from afar (it's as close as one can get these days) and another taken, using some considerable amount of sneaking about, showing a close up of the holes used to mount the Res Gestae. (Clicking on the pictures will make them full size).



Almost directly beside the mausoleum is the Ara Pacis Augustae (the Altar of Augustan Peace), which houses that very important and interesting piece of sculpture. What I found particularly interesting, though, was the building designed by Richard Meier to house it. Unexpectedly, I found that on one side of the building (appropriately the one facing the mausoleum) is the entire Res Gestae engraved elegantly on a single wall. Needless to say I was delighted to see it, and proceeded to take pictures for my own enjoyment/records and to post them here for those interested.

Given the importance of the Res Gestae as a historical document, I was very happy to see it, in it's entirety, somewhere in Rome, especially so given it's location. Sadly it's almost entirely overlooked (visited less than the Ara Pacis, which is usually quiet, and quiet enough for people to come here for peaceful lunch, as one of my pictures demonstrates), but that nevertheless allowed me some peaceful time to study the engraving and take these pictures.




Clicking on the pictures will render them larger, and ergo make the Res Gestae entirely readable, for those with some Latin. Failing that, I recommend, in book form, the P.G Brunt and J.M Moore translation, and if that is impossible the Thomas Bushnell version available online here. Having the English versions in companion with my pictures of the Latin text should make it very readable.

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Permissions and relevant bibliography:

Bushnell, Thomas, "Res Gestae" available at the Internet Classics Archive. (Copyright 1998, Thomas Bushnell, BSG. This translation may be freely distributed, provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are retained on all copies.).

Brunt, P.G and Moore, J.M, "Res Gestae Divi Augusti: The Achievements of the Divine Augustus", OUP (1967).

Future plans.

My head is currently full of thoughts for what to post here, so much so that I've decided to make a post (both to serve my own memory and to act as a signpost) that covers some of the things I'd like to write about in the future.

1 - I'm currently reading a book on ancient technology, which I find very interesting. I've been meaning to read something on the topic for a while and now I've got round to it. I feel a little out of my depth commenting on the scholarly side of the work (although I may well try anyway), and so my focus will be a more general review of the book and some other thoughts. I expect to post this in the next week.

2 - I would like to re-watch Kubrick's "Spartacus" and comment on it's historical veracity, characterisations and any other issues arising from the viewing. I'm interested in making this blog varied, and so don't want to stagnate with purely reviews of books.

3 - On a related note, I'd also like to choose a character from HBO's excellent "Rome" TV series and comment on the historical deviations and characterisation. At the moment I'm leaning towards Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, as the Agrippa in the show differs greatly from the Agrippa of record.

4 - I'm very much aware that most of my focus so far has been on Roman history, especially the late Republic and early Empire, and so I'd like to incorporate some other periods/areas into my writing. The obvious one is to include something Greek, which I certainly plan to do, and also to visit the end of the Roman Empire, for which Adrian Goldsworthy has kindly released a book on very recently.

5 - I'm considering re-working some of the essays used during my Masters, especially with an eye to "upgrading" them. The topics were disparate, and so I think they could be interesting.

6 - I would like to read more classical authors. I've read much of the classical corpus at some point or another, but never with a mind to write something afterwards. I currently live over 1000 miles from by book collection, and so this point may need to wait until November when I can retrieve some of those books.

7 - Finally, I am in Rome from next week, and shall be taking photographs and notes, which I intend to add to this page.

These, then, are my plans. Hopefully all will bear fruit. Note, entries in italics have been completed in some form.

Rome March 2008.

I usually try to visit Rome at least once per year, and the photos accompanying this post are from March 2008. I am planning to visit later this month (late July 2009) and so will add an update to this post after that trip. The pictures enclosed within this post are just my personal highlights, and number only three.

The first picture is of the Pantheon - which is now a Christian Church. It's an astoundingly interesting building originally built by Augustus' right-hand man - Marcus Agrippa, but later altered under the auspices of the Emperor Hadrian. There is considerable debate about it's original form, and this is exacerbated regarding Hadrian's habit of plastering the names of the original builders whenever overhauling or upgrading a building, making it difficult to decide which part was intended/built/funded by whom. Despite this, the current form is a breathtaking building that is, to my mind, the best preserved Roman building in the world.

Originally the Pantheon was built on a hill, and with it's enormous bronze dome, it constituted a dominant part of the Ancient Roman skyline. Sadly, changes in topography since that period mean it now lies somewhat in a ditch, although it's a testament to it's enduring majesty that it still dominates it's surroundings.

The second picture is taken from one of the bustling transport hubs of the modern city - Largo Di Torre Argentina. Despite the buzz and movement, the four Republican temples which form the centre of the square are immensely interesting. This area was formerly located in the Campus Martius (The fields of Mars) just outside the Ancient City, but is now in the centre of one of the world's busiest cities. Nevertheless the square holds large significance, not least because the ruins of Pompey's theatre are also here, and indeed these hold the spot where it is believed Julius Caesar was murdered. My picture shows the areas relevant to that significant event.

The final picture is taken from inside the Temple of Julius Caesar in the heart of the Forum Romanum. It was taken a few days after the anniversary of his murder on the Ides (15th) of March 44 B.C.E, ergo the arrangement of flowers and other memorials. In many ways I found this very surprising, but when one considers the sheer impact of Caesar on modern culture (touched upon just a little in my last post) it's really not a great surprise. Either way, it's quite moving and very interesting.


Clicking on any of the pictures will render them full size and as a result much clearer.