Your support helps us to tell the story
This election is still a dead heat, according to most polls. In a fight with such wafer-thin margins, we need reporters on the ground talking to the people Trump and Harris are courting. Your support allows us to keep sending journalists to the story.
The Independent is trusted by 27 million Americans from across the entire political spectrum every month. Unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock you out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. But quality journalism must still be paid for.
Help us keep bring these critical stories to light. Your support makes all the difference.
The august Australian art critic and historian turns the Eternal City into a theatre of dreams and delusions. His Rome grows around a spine of of energetic, if erratic, historical narratives - from ancient legend to the "nightmare" of Berlusconi's "crap" TV.
Yet the book's muscle and sinew lie in Hughes's eloquent vignettes of churches and palaces, statues and paintings – crafted with all his peerless swagger and savour.
Hughes shines among giants, with a Bernini or a Caravaggio, and also whets our appetite for lesser-known treasures. Yet he reveals a see-sawing ambivalence about the lure of Rome.
For all his zest, he scolds the fantasy of a spotless past, regrets the city's present and fears that "cultures, like individual people, do run down."
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments