Rome [antikvár]

As one looks at Giancarlo Gasponi's beautiful photographs of Romé, one gradually notices the complex temporal dimension which is so characteristic of this city. Strangely enough - but, perhaps, altér all, it is not so strange - during the second half of the nineteenth century two famous American writers mana-ged to capture this temporal dimension far better than any Italian author. At that time "European Tours" were very fashio-nable and it was considered essential, if not 'ideál', to conclu-de one's tour with at least a few months' stay in Rome. This is what the main characters in Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Mar-ble Faun" do; similarly, Roderick Hudson and Daisy Miller, two of the most attractive characters Henry James ever crea-ted, spend somé time in Rome. Nearly all these young peo-ple, Miriam and Hilda, Roderick and Kenyon, come from far away New England. The men wear stiff, white collars under-neath their cleanly shaven chins; however, they have spar-kling eyes, a careless air of gaiety and unusual mannerisms which soon break through their grave Bostonian demeanour, The women, with their steady, dreamy gazé and mass of fair hair are not inferior to the men in their sweet, restrained, and yet, lively, feminine fashion. Nearly all of them are artists, or aspiring artists, or, at least, appreciate not only beautiful things, such as paintings, sculptures, architecture and the countryside, but alsó the ruins of the ancient Román civilisa-tion. With this "vague feeling for an austere pást" and "such a deep clear insight into the past civilisation that the present one is completely forgottén", they explore Rome's infinite ri-ches and treasures.All James and Hawthorne's characters have a lot of time at their disposal and so they plan to spend their days wandering around Rome at a leisurely pace, inconceivable to the modern reader. They all inevitably visit the same places: they meet up, and the reader sees them, admiring the sculptures in the Capitoline Museum, while outside, the glorious light of an au-tumn afternoon shines through the lead-framed window-pa-nes and illuminates the stucco-work, the capitals and the mar-ble floors and statues. In groups of two or three, they visit the