Rome impressed not other city I know, not only for its great architecture, but also by the sheer mass of great architecture. You can spend hours strolling in the city, without making that ugliness is wide, and met again and again grand villas with magnificent gardens or in parks runs of incalculable length. The names of calls each map and the guidebook provides a historic occasion to snack. But who wants to know here and there a bit more about the imposing mansions, the book is the Roman palaces and villas the director and writer Ernst Batta to heart. This is not how one might think about art history, but first and foremost historical gossip. On the basis of 25 palaces and villas Batta told through the story of as many Roman families. And these are certainly not bedtime stories. Roman families over the centuries, that is noblemen, cardinals and popes, that means the rise and decline, wealth and splendor, war, intrigue and nepotism. All her up so the eye of the reader by: the Borghese and Colonna that Barberini and the Farnese that Borgia and Pamphili - sounding name, triumphs and pitfalls. The reading is highly entertaining (as usual with gossip books), and with advancing book storylines come together to show links and connections, are minor characters in a palazzo on the other protagonists, followed Screened patrons, cardinals, popes, and on the reverse. The result is a portrait of a long period, from the Renaissance to the 19th Century, in Rome the center of the world was - and of Christianity anyway (where most of the juicy details of which lives this book, to do with Christianity has very little, but that's another story).
Ernst Batta has written a fun book. His love and enthusiasm for Rome, this unique stage of cabal intrigues and lights from each side. It would be an exaggeration to say that I have studied the three hundred pages really. But on the next trip to Rome (God willing) I will now and then recognize a facade, a detail note, remind me of an anecdote - and be happy about.
Technicals: Ernst Batta, Roman palaces and villas. Approximation to a city. Paperback island 1324th Frankfurt, Insel 1992nd ISBN 3 458 33024 0th The book is out of print and only antiquarian available.
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