Rome Through the Mist

Join Joe Gartman, culture columnist for Italia! Magazine, on a journey among 80 of Rome’s celebrated fountains, and find a more intimate way of experiencing the Eternal City. On foot with book in hand, or simply in imagination, each chapter takes readers on a vivid walk, enhanced with colorful, revealing photographs of Roman life. Every fountain in Rome tells a story and every story is about Rome: her history, her legends, and her extraordinary people—poets and popes, artists and models, architects and emperors, saints and sinners. Every street, piazza, wall and garden that contains a fountain has a past worth knowing.

Discover the paths in this book, with 15 different turn-by-turn walking tours, 17 maps, and 181 full-color photos. Journey from Trevi’s torrents to the Naiad’s naughty nymphs and from the quiet basins in Piazza San Simeone to Bernini’s mighty Four Rivers in Piazza Navona; or perhaps find a secret fountain where tourists rarely go, and listen to the voices of the waters.

For nine years, as Italia! Magazine’s “resident historian and storyteller”, Joe Gartman has written a column called “Fast Culture” as well as many articles on travel, art, and history. His work also appears in the Italia! Guides series, German Life Magazine, and online at italytravelandlife.com.

A librarian and teacher by profession, Patricia Gartman found a new vocation for travel photography when she began to publish photos to illustrate Joe’s magazine articles. Hundreds of her pictures have appeared in Italia! Magazine, German Life Magazine and Italia! Guides.

Joe Gartman, photographs by Patricia Gartman

Format: softcover (7 x 10)
Pages: 270
Bibliographic Info: 181 photos, 17 maps, notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2023
pISBN: 978-1-4766-8924-1
eISBN: 978-1-4766-4756-2
Imprint: Toplight

Acknowledgments vi
Introduction 1
1. Triton and Trevi and a Fountain Quartet: Piazza Barberini Area 7
2. Sensuous to Sacred: Piazza Repubblica Area 28
3. Queen Christina’s Cannonball to Audrey Hepburn’s Sleepover: Piazza di Spagna Area 45
4. Nero’s Bones, Pharaohs, and Roman Gods: Piazza del Popolo Area 58
5. Pax Romana to the Porter’s Water Barrel: via Ripetta and via del Corso Area 67
6. The Altar of the Fatherland to the Altar of Heaven: Piazza Venezia Area 83
7. Caput Mundi: Capitoline Area 94
8. Walls, Gates, Fountains, and Memories: Roman Ghetto Area 110
9. Tosca’s Church to Agrippa’s Temple: Pantheon Area 123
10. One Ballerina, Two Sea Gods, and Four Rivers: Piazza Navona Area 136
11. Veggie Soup and Wine with the Farnese: Campo de’ Fiori Area 150
12. Across the River and into the Fountains: Trastevere 162
13. Mother Church’s Twins and New Water for Old Rome: Vatican Area 191
14. A Walk in the Park: Villa Borghese Area 208
15. Scattered Treasures: Here and There 234
Chapter Notes 253
Bibliography 255
Index 257