General Introduction; Introduction; Giovanni Boccaccio: Abraham the Jew; Pier Paolo Pasolini: Release; Giacomo Casanova: The New Therese; Erri De Luca: The Shirt on the Wall; Anonymous Roman: Cola Di Rienzo; Goffredo Parise: Freedom; Melania Mazzucco: Blue Car; Ennio Flaiano: Via Veneto Notes; Francesco Mandica: Lorette Ellerup; Elisabetta Rasy: Two Days to Christmas; Matteo Bandello: Isabella De Luna; Vincenzo Cerami: The Rubber Twins; Giorgio Vigolo: The Beautiful Hand; Dacia Maraini: The Girl with the Braid; Giacomo Debenedetti: 16 October 1943; Sandro Onofri: Samia; Igiaba Scego: Exmatriates; Alberto Moravia: Romulus and Remus; Corrado Alvaro: The Small Hours; Giosue Calaciura: The Sound of Woodworm; Notes on the Authors; Further Reading and Viewing; Map; Publisher's Acknowledgments

In ways no guide book can achieve, these twenty absorbing tales by Italian authors ranging from Boccaccio in the Middle Ages to Giacomo Casanova in the eighteenth century, to Pier-Paolo Pasolini in the twentieth and contemporary new writers such as Melania Mazzucco and Igiaba Scego, offer the delight of discovering and exploring one of the world's most unique cities thorough a wide variety of individual lives and epochs. The tales span seven hundred years but rather than being ordered chronologically, old and new appear alongside one another, reflecting the dual identity of Rome - thriving, modern metropolis and ancient city centre that is one of the wonders of the world. The tales are wonderfully varied in style, tone, and subject matter. Casanova sets about seducing the hotelier's daughter only minutes after his arrival, a notorious Spanish prostitute in Renaissance Rome endures a public hiding without flinching, a Danish tourist in her sixties finds an unusual lover, Pope John Paul II uncovers a vast conspiracy against him, a medieval revolutionary demagogue suffers almost the same fate as Mussolini.
Each story is illustrated with a black-and-white photograph and there is a map of Rome to help readers locate the important sites which feature in the text. A deep sense of timelessness, of separate destinies entwined across a gulf of centuries, is the cumulative effect of this vivid mosaic of dramatic, comic, and tragic stories set in the Eternal City.

Helen Constantine taught languages in schools until 2000, when she became a full-time translator. She has published two volumes of translated stories, Paris Tales and French Tales, and is currently editing a series of City Tales for Oxford University Press. She has translated Mademoiselle de Maupin by Théophile Gautier and Dangerous Liaisons by Choderlos de Laclos for Penguin. She is married to the writer David Constantine and with him edits the international magazine Modern Poetry in Translation.
Hugh Shankland lived several years in Rome before founding and heading the Italian department at Durham University, England.