Rome

Rome (Roma) is the capital of Italy and of Latium, central Italy. It is also see of the Pope who resides in Vatican City which is a Sovereign State within the boundaries of Rome. It occupies both banks of the River Tiber and its tributary, the Aneine (Anio) which flows down from Tivoli across the Campagna. It lies between the Apennines and the Tyrrhenian Sea. It was founded in ancient times on seven hills on the east (left) bank of the Tiber. The walls, built in the third century by the Emperor Aurelian still defined it in the late nineteenth century, this being the Rome known by Ruskin. Known as the Eternal City, it is site of one of the world's richest histories and of some of its greatest artistic, intellectual, and cultural developments. It is home to a number of the world's most significant architectural monuments from the Classical, Renaissance and Baroque eras, including respectively, the Pantheon and the Colosseum, St Peter's Bascilica and a number of Baroque churches by the architects Bernini and Borromini. Ruskin first visited Rome with his parents in 1840-41. He returned in 1872 and 1874. He recalls his first trip in a letter of December 1856 to Charles Elliot Norton, and again in Praeterita ( Works, 35.270-78). Ruskin was generally not impressed with Rome on his first visit, although he later recalls favourably his study of Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel ( Works, 35.616-17). In 1874 he studied Botticelli and Perugino. See Vaults of the Sistine.

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