The overarching achievement of this vibrant, opinionated, detailed new look at the Eternal City is that it forces the reader to look at Rome with new eyes. The approach is chronological, the method to take a mass of historical detail and shape it into a cohesive narrative, sweeping from one event, movement, influence or person to another, leaving us with so much information and rekindled curiosity that I suspect many will want to visit, or re-visit, Rome at the first opportunity.

Recreating Rome’s earliest days, Robert Hughes reminds us that much of the story of Romulus and Remus is myth; that the aqueducts, now viewed as archaeological curiosities, were the lifeblood of the growing town; that political and artistic patronage was a reality as far back as Virgil; that the major influence on classical Roman architecture and sculpture was Greek; that for many years various forms of paganism and Christianity battled for control of people’s souls, often with great cruelty and bloodshed; that the town was an ugly, dirty, overcrowded, dangerous place for most of its inhabitants; and that the Roman emperors, with a couple of exceptions, were a vicious, revolting lot.

In the Middle Ages we meet Cola Di Rienzo, a commoner who ruthlessly bettered himself, achieving the status of Tribune; soon after, we rediscover Bruneleschi, ‘the father of Renaissance architecture’ and Julius II, ‘the first pope to lead an army from horseback’. We learn that the building of St Peter’s took 120 years, involving several architects and principal artists including Raphael and Michelangelo. (A digression concerning the controversial cleaning of the Sistine Chapel ceiling in the 1970s is typical of the author’s encyclopaedic approach.) Completing his breathtaking chapter on the Renaissance, Hughes plunges into the 17th century with the provocative words ‘you cannot imagine modern Rome without the changes that a single pope, Sixtus V, imposed on it’. Writing about more recent history, he labels the gigantic Vittorio Emmanuele monument ‘most stupefyingly pompous’. He spells out the deviousness with which Pope Pious IX imposed the dogma of papal infallibility on a reluctant priesthood and is at pains to stress the overriding influence of the Catholic church on Rome for much of the city’s life. The book charges on through the 18th and 19th centuries, concluding with a concise, lively look at the major arts, political and literary movements of the 20th.

Who should read it? Anyone with any feeling for this magnificent city.

Max Oliver is an Australian bookseller and enthusiastic traveller. This review first appeared in the June issue of Bookseller+Publisher magazine.