“The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page.” - St. Augustine

I’m heading to Rome this fall and I don’t just want to visit or sightsee. I want to wander and let the experience change me. I’m looking for things to read, thinking about what lies ahead, what Rome is, how it works and who built it. And if you’re here, I either begged you to read this or you googled a “Rome reading list”.

Traveling, whether it’s thirty minutes away from your house or thirty hours away, can be a transformative experience if that’s what you’re looking to have. I think the secret is giving yourself time to wander and reflect. For me, writing, reading, wandering around getting lost and seeing things you haven’t read about yet is the key to transformative travel.

For example, my first time in London was a whirlwind four day trip. I saw the city, but I didn’t get to know it. How could I? By the time I’d adjusted from jetlag, I was back at the airport, boarding my return flight.

My second and third trips to London, however, were nice and long. My husband and I took time to get ourselves lost in the city and towns we visited. We wandered foggy streets, read the works of artists who’d created there, visited spots that are hallowed to writers and book geeks like me, contemplating the history and culture of the place. Sometimes, this was done all from leaning against a bridge rail, staring at the Thames, thinking about Joseph Conrad’s reflection in Heart of Darkness: “We looked at that venerable stream not in the vivid flush of a short day that comes and departs forever but in the august light of abiding memories.” Other times it was done by wandering into a pub not listed in any guidebook, or wandering through an ancient graveyard. Giving ourselves time to reflect, wander and get lost, London became as much a part of us as our backyard.

So this fall, my husband and I head to Rome for 5 weeks to film a documentary for our cinema studies major, as well as several scenes of our first film. I want to have as much of an experience, and really, much more so, as I had in London. I was struck by the title of an early travelogue by 14th century Moroccan Muslim scholar, Ibn Battuta, whose book is literally entitled, “A Gift to Those Who Contemplate the Wonders of Cities and the Marvels of Traveling”. I thought, This is exactly what I want my trip in Rome to be. A gift to me for contemplating the wonder of cities and the marvels of traveling. I don’t just want to see Rome. I want to contemplate it and the act of traveling through it. I want to become a part of it and leave with a bit of it stuck in my soul. So, to that affect, I’ve been compiling a reading list before I head over, a Literary Journey before my actual one.

So it has become a focus as I prepare for this trip and will most likely affect the subject of the documentary: How traveling affects the city traveled in and the traveler within it. Specifically in Rome, tourism saved the city. The European Grand Tour became a revitalizing breath for a city that had been largely buried under debris and forgotten. While cities like London and Paris made it through hard times and retained their importance, Rome’s grandeur faded as the political and religious powers moved away from the city. But when the Romantic artists went a’wandering, poets and playwrights resurrected Rome’s ancient ghosts and captivated the imaginations of the Continent. Soon many of the great writers that we know and love today had visited or lived in Rome and created art there. The list of expat artists in Rome is exciting (or exhausting, if you’re not into this and just reading this post because I begged you to): Percy & Mary Shelley, Lord Byron, John Keats, Charles Dickens, Sir Walter Scott, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Louisa May Alcott, Mark Twain, Goethe, Eliot, the Brownings, Coleridge, Joyce, Wilde, Wharton and so many others.

The Keats-Shelley House, located in the Piazza di Spagna, has a lovely map showing where several of these writers lived while in Rome. The act of looking and contemplating how civilization at the time was indebted to Rome, recalling its greatness and taking moral cues from its decline, influenced some of the most important art of the time. Even Thomas Jefferson visited Rome on the Grand Tour, and mused on its laws and philosophy when creating our own government. The Grand Tour and the attention drawn to Rome by the artists who illuminated it in their works gave a new life to the city. It was cleaned up, excavated (its still being excavated) and it’s old glory was polished up for the world to view once again. Traveling doesn’t seem to be as important today as it once was, but when one looks at Rome, one can’t help but see that traveling and “contemplating the wonder of cities” influenced the Romantic age and brought Rome back to a place of prominence. I’m not advocating Puerto Vallarta-type American tourism here.

The artists I’m pondering immersed themselves into the area, let it soak into them and their art, considered themselves and their sense of themselves in that place, and gave the world a piece of that experience. So, to write my essays and make the documentary about pondering Rome and travel as a necessity for the soul, I’m reading up on all the poets and playwrights who have traveled to the city before me, and trying to listen to what they have to say so I can a) figure out how Rome has been literarily framed before and b) NOT SAY THE SAME THING. Here is a list (SO FAR) of works crafted in Rome, after having traveled in Italy or travel literature written by those I consider literary geniuses, as well as links to these books, should you want to purchase them, via this Literary Rome list on Indiebound (love their list feature!):

Since list’s like the above are a little rare on the internet, I’d like help flushing it out. If you know of a book that should be added to this list (again, no Dan Brown or historical romance novels, please) then leave the title and description in the comments. I, and the rest of the literary nerds who travel the world, would be incredibly grateful. * And again, if you’re in the mood to buy any of these books, here’s a link to the list at IndieBound: