On the Street of the Hidden Shops: One City Block, Two Thousand Years, and a Walk Through the Layered Lives of Rome - Couverture rigide

Rodini, Elizabeth

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0226835065 ISBN 13 : 9780226835068

Editeur : University of Chicago Press, 2026

Synopsis

Delve into Rome’s lost history through the stories of a single city block.

Cutting through the heart of Rome is Via delle Botteghe Oscure, a time-worn street named for the mysterious “shops” said to run beneath it. History lies thick here, a museum atop a convent atop ancient ruins; layered in are traces of artisans and poets, pilgrims and saints, a Fascist deportation, a communist coffee bar, a political assassination, and shopkeepers, too. These stories all rest upon a single city block, the same place where, in 13 BCE, the triumphal Roman general Lucius Cornelius Balbus built a monumental theater complex in his own honor.

Elizabeth Rodini’s On the Street of the Hidden Shops digs deep into this corner of the city, uncovering a set of surprising, often poignant narratives that range across two thousand years. For as the walls of Balbus’s compound decayed and the neighborhood was rebuilt, this block would come to shelter Romans from all walks of life: the daughters of local prostitutes, an earnest young man in search of a bride, an entrepreneur determined to preserve the city’s colorful dialect, a Jewish family recently liberated from the nearby Ghetto, and a band of idealistic archaeologists unearthing a long-forgotten past, as well as a gifted baker, a medieval donkey, and a Renaissance ghost. Their stories survive in archives and artifacts but also in the enduring power of rumor and legend.

On the Street of the Hidden Shops invites us on a captivating journey to one place across many centuries. Its tight urban focus reveals a Rome most visitors miss, while uncovering some of the many Romes that have been largely lost to history.

A propos du livre

À propos de l'auteur

Elizabeth Rodini is an art historian and writer who explores the multifaceted stories embedded in objects and places. She is the author of Gentile Bellini’s Portrait of Sultan Mehmed II: Lives and Afterlives of an Iconic Image. On the Street of the Hidden Shops was inspired by her time at the American Academy in Rome, where she served as the Andrew Heiskell Arts Director and interim director. She lives in New York City.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: University of Chicago Press
• Date d'édition: 2026
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0226835065
• ISBN 13: 9780226835068
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 376
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible