Wolfgang Goethe

The first Grand Tourist, German author Goethe (1749– 1832) rented rooms on the Corso, now a museum, between 1786 and 1788 (see SS Ambrogio e Carlo al Corso). His book Italian Journey laid the blueprint for later tourists who came to Italy to learn from its history and to complete their education.

John Keats

The English Romantic poet (1795–1821) came to Rome in 1820 for the antiquities and Italian lifestyle – and to bolster his ailing health, which nevertheless failed. Keats died at age 25 of tuberculosis in an apartment by the Spanish Steps (see Keats-Shelley Memorial).

Henry James

The New York author (1843– 1916) spent half his life in Europe. Rome features in Daisy Miller, A Roman Holiday, Portrait of a Lady and his travelogue Italian Hours. In an 1869 letter he proclaimed “At last – for the first time – I live! It beats everything: it leaves the Rome of your fancy – your education – nowhere.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne

During his Italian sojourn from 1857 to 1859, the American man of letters (1804–64) was so moved by an ancient sculpture in the Capitoline museums he crafted his final novel The Marble Faun around it.

Alberto Moravia

One of Italy’s top modern authors (1907–90) wrote about Rome in Racconti Romani, La Romana, La Ciociara, Gli Indifferenti and La Noia, most of which have been translated.

Lord Byron

The ultimate Romantic poet (1788–1824) who lived, to varying degrees, the cavalier life so beloved by his genre. He spent years in Italy in the company of the Shelleys and other friends, and based a large part of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage and Don Juan on his experiences here.

Edward Gibbon

When English parliamentarian Gibbon (1737–94) stood in the Forum for the first time in 1764, he was struck by how “…each memorable spot where Romulus stood, or Tully spoke, or Caesar fell, was at once present to my eye.” He resolved to write the history of Rome, and by 1788 had finished his seminal work, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

Gore Vidal

The prolific American writer (b.1925) has been a resident of Rome and Ravello, south of Naples, for decades. His Roman experiences have informed such books as The Judgment of Paris, Julian and his memoir Palimpsest.

Mark Twain

The American writer (1835–1910) spent little time in the Eternal City during his Grand Tour, but his satirical impressions in The Innocents Abroad have become among the most quoted and memorable of any visitor.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

The English poet (1792– 1822) lived in Italy with his wife Mary from 1818 until he drowned near Pisa. He visited Rome often, and penned the masterpiece The Cenci about the scandal of Roman patrician Beatrice Cenci.

Plautus

Formulaic comedies of errors by Plautus (250–184 BC) influenced Shakespeare.

Caesar

General, dictator and writer (100–44 BC). De Bello Gallico describes his campaigns in Gaul (France), The Civil War his fight against Pompey.

Cicero

Great orator and staunch republican (106–43 BC). His speeches grant insight into Roman political life.

Virgil

Poet and propagandist (70–19 BC). His epic The Aeneid tied Rome’s foundation to the Trojan War.

Ovid

Greatest Roman Classical poet (43 BC–AD 17). His Metamorphoses codified many Roman myths, but Ars Amatoria detailed how to entice women and got him exiled.

Tacitus

Tacitus (55–117) wrote Annals and Histories covering Rome’s early Imperial history; Life of Agricola his father-in-law’s governorship of Britain.

Juvenal

Romans invented satire; Juvenal (60–130) perfected the form in his poems.

Pliny the Younger

The letters (Epistulae) of Pliny (61–113) to prominent figures give us a glimpse of imperial society.

Suetonius

Historian (70–125) who wrote the lives of the Caesars.

Petronius

Petronius (70–130) parodied Roman life in Satiricon.