Rome Walk on the Families and Rivalries That Built the City

This walk is organised around questions rather than a list of monuments, and the questions are the ones people actually ask while standing in the street. How many fountains does Rome have? Why does anyone throw money into one of them? And why are there Egyptian obelisks on half the squares in a European capital? The answers run through the same material: emperors and popes, the families who paid for the buildings to outdo each other, and the architects, dreamers and ordinary Romans who did the work. The city looks the way it does because of specific rivalries between specific people, and once the guide names them the squares stop being decorative. The route starts at Piazza Venezia under the Vittoriano, takes in Trajan's Column and the markets behind it, passes Palazzo Colonna where ancient Rome hands over to the Baroque, then the Trevi Fountain, Sant'Ignazio with its painted ceiling, and finishes at the Pantheon. You also leave with a list of where to eat, including where to find basil gelato, which does exist and is better than it sounds.