10 Comments
User's avatar
Life Lived Italian's avatar

Wonderful stories-- I knew next to nothing about Margaret Fuller or Maria Clementina Sobieska Stuart. So many ghosts lurking around Rome...

Expand full comment
Mary  Jane  Cryan's avatar

thanks for the Borgo Pio suggestions,I wil add to next week’s story-

Expand full comment
aline dobrzensky's avatar

Just loved reading this and it brought back so many memories of that part of Rome . I lived in 1973 for a year in a delightful small Pensione at number 50 Via del Babuino

Expand full comment
Mary  Jane  Cryan's avatar

you were very lucky.... 73 was among the wonderful years.... Im sure you will love Andre Aciman's latest book "Roman Year"... he was a student at NDI where I taught.

Expand full comment
Mary  Jane  Cryan's avatar

lots of cute apartments in my palazzo...and neighborhood

Expand full comment
Peter Assrlbergs's avatar

Ciao Mary Jane, thanks for the walk through Rome. Still Roma, but changed!

Is the Penguin bookshop still around? The British Council library? I spent hours there in the 70s.

Peter

Expand full comment
Mary  Jane  Cryan's avatar

I didnt know there was a Penguin bookshop...maybe it was called Economy bookshop ? British Council library 's books were all sold (early 90s) to the University della Tuscia in Viterbo to form a core for their foreign language dept. Ill be coming to Elba in July on Azamara... hope to see you then.

Expand full comment
Etta Madden's avatar

Thanks, Mary Jane! Visited Rome only briefly in the 1980s, then again briefly in 2009. Since 2013 I have had longer stays and have fallen in love with it. I appreciate your memories and the details. One of the women in my book, Engaging Italy, first lived on Via Babuino. Anne Hampton Brewster was a journalist in Rome for 20 years. She was surrounded by expats, of course, and she loved dropping their names in the updates she sent back to the US from 1869 onward. How the area has changed since then!

Expand full comment
Mary  Jane  Cryan's avatar

thanks for adding her - hope you come back soon , we have so much to talk about….

Expand full comment
Etta Madden's avatar

I would love to come spend a couple of weeks near you!! Maybe in the fall…

Expand full comment