Roma Aeterna - the Eternal City

"There is almost nothing beautiful in the world other than Rome."

(Johann Joachim Winckelmann, 1756)

Rome, the navel of the world, the Eternal City the center of Western Christianity: epithets like these have long been used to try to define the unique nature of the Italian capital. Three thousand eventful years have fashioned the character of this remarkable city, creating an historical synthesis found nowhere else in the world.

In every century the masters of Rome the generals and emperors of classical times, and then popes and princes later stamped their own personalities on the city. They summoned famous architects and artists to create the buildings, sculptures and paintings that lend the capital the appearance still constitutes its fascination today.

Past and present, the pagan and the Christian, art and everyday life – all are inextricably combined. Again and again through its long history, the city has given crucial political and artistic stimulus to the cultural and intellectual history of Europe.

Latin, the language of the classical empire, has many modern Western descendants. The governmental and judicial systems of ancient Rome became the model for a number of modern states and their legal codes. It was in Rome that the imperialist ideas of the Middle Ages originated, molded by Christianity; it was here that papal power established itself in the age of the Renaissance, while the papal court became the center of humanist culture. In classical antiquity and modern times alike, Roman architecture, painting and sculpture have regularly inspired the whole of the Western world. Notwithstanding all the changes the Eternal City has seen, it has preserved an immense variety of art treasures that from time immemorial have attracted and delighted millions of cultured visitors. So great is Rome's magnetic attraction that many who were planning only a short visit have felt impelled to stay on longer, for months or even years. The list of the city's famous visitors is a long one, and many of them have tried to sum up their overwhelming impressions in words. Perhaps the best-known comment was made by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: "I can say that only in Rome have I understood what a human being really is. I never again reached those heights or knew those joyful sensations; by comparison with what I felt in Rome, I have never really been happy again."