Rome Is Love Spelled Backward: Enjoying Art and Architecture in the Eternal City / Edition 1

by Judith Testa

Overview

A celebration of the art, architecture, and timeless human passion of the Eternal City, Rome Is Love Spelled Backward explores Rome's best-known treasures, often revealing secrets overlooked in conventional guidebooks. With the ancient play on "Roma" and "Amor"—ROMAMOR—Testa invites readers to experience the world's long love affair with one of its most beautiful cities.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780875805764
Publisher:	Cornell University Press
Publication date:	04/01/1998
Edition description:	1
Pages:	303
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Judith Testa is professor emerita at Northern Illinois University and author of Rome is Love Spelled Backward: Enjoying Art and Architecture in the Eternal City.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents
Introduction
Part 1: Ancient Rome
1 The Roman Forum
2 The Ara Pacis Augustae
3 The Colosseum
4 When Rome Ruled the World
5 The Pantheon
6 Castel Sant' Angelo
7 The Baths of Caracalla and of Diocletian
8 The Walls of Mighty Rome
9 Rome's Indispensable Aqueducts
Part 2: Early Christian and Medieval Rome
10 The Christian Catacombs
11 The Jewish Catacombs
12 St. John Lateran
13 S. Maria Maggiore
14 S. Prassede
15 S. Clemente
Part 3: Late Medieval and Renaissance Rome
16 S. Maria sopra Minerva
17 Pope Julius II
18 Raphael in Rome: The Vatican Frescoes
19 Raphael in Rome: The Villa Farnesina
20 Leo X and Clement VII
21 Pope Paul III and His Art Patronage
22 St. Peter's
23 The Sistine Chapel
24 Michelangelo's Last Judgment
25 The Rome of St. Ignatius Loyola
26 Pope Sixtus and His Urban Planning
Part 4: Baroque Rome
27 Caravaggio
28 Caravaggio Up Close
29 Gianlorenzo Bernini
30 Bernini at St. Peter's
31 The Architecture of Francesco Borromini
32 The Trevi Fountain
Part 5: Modern Rome
33 The Quartiere Coppedè
34 Mussolini's "Third Rome"
35 The Shrines of Rome's Modern Martyrs
Notes
Bibliography
List of Illustrations
Index

What People are Saying About This

William L. MacDonald

The touch is light and the enthusiasm infectious. An informative book for lovers of Rome and its art that armchair travelers will also enjoy.

Editorial Reviews

With a text both scholarly and entertaining, Testa has produced a guide useful for the serious student and passionate sightseer. The text is characterized by both lucidity and a sincere love of the subject matter, and this makes the book a pleasure to read and also a wonderful guide for travelers to Rome.

Choice

With a text both scholarly and entertaining, Testa has produced a guide useful for the serious student and passionate sightseer. The text is characterized by both lucidity and a sincere love of the subject matter, and this makes the book a pleasure to read and also a wonderful guide for travelers to Rome.

-- "Choice"

From the Publisher

Emperor Hadrian is credited for pairing the patron goddess, Roma, with the long-worshiped love deity, Venus, thus creating the palindrome Romamor, which gives this unusual and worthy guidebook its name. In five chronologically arranged sections (Ancient Rome, Early Christian and Medieval Rome, Late Medieval and Renaissance Rome, Baroque Rome and Modern Rome), Northern Illinois University art history professor Testa covers the city's art and architecture with insight, sensitivity and scholarly perspective rarely found in travel manuals. Many chapters are devoted to a single monument: S. Maria Sopra Minerva, the Trevi Fountain, Castel Sant'Angelo, the Colosseum. Others are on larger themes, such as the building programs of Sixtus V or those of Mussolini. Everything is presented in welcome detail with background information for fuller understanding of the sites that surround a visitor to the Eternal City. Anyone interested in the classic arts will learn something from Testa's text, whether it's the reason the Pantheon was built, the source of the Christian and Jewish catacombs, or the roles that Caravaggio and Bernini played in creating a baroque Rome. With 50 photos, narrative text and no information on shops, restaurants, or hotels, it's a guidebook for sophisticated travelers who already know where to stay, but want more than a sentence on what they're seeing. (May)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

A guide to some of Rome's treasures with the idea that only what is understood can really be enjoyed. The book is arranged chronologically rather than geographically, to reflect the different eras in which major construction occurred: ancient artifacts; early Christian and Medieval sites; Late Medieval and Renaissance works; the baroque; and modern Rome. Contains a few b&w photographs. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

Booknews

In Rome Is Love Spelled Backward [Roma Amor], Judith Testa (Professor of Art History at Northern Illinois University) takes the reader on a fascinating and informative historical survey of the art, architecture, personalities, and wonders of the Eternal City from it founding down to the present day. The five sections around which her commentaries are organized and presented include: Ancient Rome; Early Christian and Medieval Rome; Late Medieval and Renaissance Rome; Baroque Rome; and Modern Rome. A scholarly, highly accessible work, enthusiastically recommended history, Rome Is Love Spelled Backward is enhanced for the reader with extensive notes, a bibliography, list of illustrations, and an exhaustive, nine page index.

The touch is light and the enthusiasm infectious....An informative book for lovers of Rome and its art that armchair travelers will also enjoy. -- William L. MacDonald

William L. MacDonald

Will inform and delight all those who love Rome, whether as armchair travelers or repeated visitors. The author's enthusiasm and knowledge of her subject shine through these pages. -- John Pinto

John A. Pinto