Via Roma: The History of Rome in Fifty Streets

Why is the broad avenue leading to St. Peter’s called the Street of Reconciliation? What does the Via dei Fori Imperiali—where the ancient imperial forums lie—have to do with Mussolini? How does the name Piazza Navona disclose what is hidden under the square?

Via Roma tells Rome’s secrets one street at a time.

In her brilliant guide, Willemijn van Dijk takes readers across time and place as they wander along the roads of the ancient Italian capital. Street by street, fifty of them, van Dijk allows the stones to reveal their origins, their makers, the significance of their names, and the history they continue to echo. Caesars, Popes, dictators, mafia dons, generals, philosophers, and artists. Architecture, ideas, romance, food, and intrigue. Rome is the eternal city to which all roads lead, and van Dijk unfolds the city’s rich past through those roads.

Via Roma is an indispensable book for any and every inquisitive lover, and visitor, of the city along the Tiber.