There is an immense quantity of literature on the city of Rome, its history and beauty. The “Cittá Eterna”, or Eternal City, that is Rome, as it is experienced and told by writers, is at the centre of a meeting scheduled for Thursday February 4 (at 6pm) at the Italian Cultural Institute in Stockholm. Organised by the Italian Cultural Institute itself, in collaboration with the Swedish Institute in Rome and the Svenska Rominstitutets vänner, the event will give the opportunity to get to know the book signed by Sabrina Norlander Eliasson and Stefano Fogelberg Rota entitled “City of the Soul: The Literary Making of Rome Hardcover” (released in October 2015, 205 pages). Introduced by the editors of the volume, Anna Blennow and Johann Eriksson will be attending the meeting: “thirteen Swedish and foreign scholars discuss the image of Rome in travel literature, in the centuries that preceded and followed the Grand Tour”, explains the Italian Cultural Institute on its website.
There is an immense quantity of literature on the city of Rome, its history and beauty
Travellers include: Joachim Du Bellay, Bengt Oxenstierna, Marie-Anne and Louise Angélique de la Trémoille, Nile Bielke, Carl Fredrik Fredenheim, Johan David Åkerblad, Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Stendhal, Henry James and Claes Lagergren. The multiple perspectives, enriched by the different nationalities of these extraordinary travellers, underlies the creation of the image of the ‘Eternal City’ and its transposition in literature.