The Arrival of Something That Will Not Last the Winter

The Arrival of Something That Will Not Last the Winter

by | Oct 7, 2026 | Journal

Rome, September 1820John Keats arrived in Rome last week from England, accompanied by his friend Joseph Severn the painter. He has come for the climate, his physicians having decided that the warmer Italian air might slow the tuberculosis that has been progressing...
What the Church Does When Power Demands It

What the Church Does When Power Demands It

by | Sep 2, 2026 | Journal

Rome, May 1527The army of Charles V has been sacking this city for three weeks. The word sacking does not describe what I have been witnessing. The word implies a military operation with defined objectives. This is something older: the permission given to men who have...
What Violence Looks Like When It Has a Master

What Violence Looks Like When It Has a Master

by | Jul 25, 2026 | Journal

Rome, autumn 1605Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio is in serious trouble with the law again, which means he is also, at this particular moment, producing some of the most extraordinary paintings Rome has seen in fifty years. These two things are not unrelated. The...
The Room Where Keats Is Dying

The Room Where Keats Is Dying

by | Jul 4, 2026 | Journal

Rome, February 3, 1821He arrived last September from England already pale, already carrying the news of himself in the color of his face. The rooms on the Spanish Steps are small. The English physician Joseph Severn has been with him through the worst of it. I am not...
The City Mourned an Artist

The City Mourned an Artist

by | Jun 13, 2026 | Journal

Rome, April 7, 1520Raphael Sanzio died yesterday. Thirty-seven years old, on his birthday, of a fever. Rome has gone into a mourning I have not seen extended to an artist before and do not expect to see again in my lifetime, which is a more complicated statement than...