City of the Soul critically examines how an international cast of visitors fashioned Rome’s image, visual and literary, in the century between 1770 and 1870—from the era of the Grand Tour to the onset of mass tourism. The Eternal City emerges not only as an intensely physical place but also as a romantic idea onto which artists and writers projected their own imaginations and longings. The book will appeal to a wide audience of readers interested in the history of art, architecture, and photography, the Romantic poets, and other writers from Byron to Henry James. It will also attract the interest of historians of urbanism, landscape, and Italy. Nonspecialists and armchair travelers will enjoy the diverse literary and artistic responses to Rome.

JOHN A. PINTO taught for twenty-five years at Princeton University in the Department of Art and Archaeology. His research interests focus on the architecture of eighteenth-century Rome and on the relationship between the architecture of classical antiquity and that of the Renaissance. He currently resides in New York City.