Books set in Rome, Italy

Italy — Rome

2022
Roman Stories
Jhumpa Lahiri · stories · 2022
Locals, migrants and visitors in the Rome of today.
2009
Let the Games Begin
Niccolò Ammaniti · novel · 2009
A satanist sect and a has-been writer crash a tycoon’s lavish party in a Rome park.
2007
Four Seasons in Rome
Anthony Doerr · memoir · 2007
A year in Rome with newborn twins, as a writer walks the city and its past.
2006
Imperium
Robert Harris · novel · 2006
79–64 BC: Cicero’s rise through the courts and backrooms of republican Rome.
2000
Angels & Demons
Dan Brown · thriller · 2000
A symbologist races through Rome’s churches to save the Vatican’s conclave.
1974
History
Elsa Morante · novel · 1974
1941–47: a widow and her son struggle through bombed Rome.
1957
Second Thoughts
Michel Butor · novel · 1957
Twenty hours on the Paris–Rome train, as a man rethinks leaving his wife.
1955
The Ragazzi
Pier Paolo Pasolini · novel · 1955
1940s: boys from Rome’s postwar slums live by petty theft on the city’s edges.
1954
Contempt
Alberto Moravia · novel · 1954
A screenwriter’s marriage falls apart during a film shoot in Rome and Capri.
1951
Memoirs of Hadrian
Marguerite Yourcenar · novel · 1951
2nd century: the dying emperor Hadrian looks back on his life and on Rome.
1914
The Vatican Cellars
André Gide · novel · 1914
A swindle claims the Pope is held prisoner in the Vatican’s cellars.
1896
Quo Vadis
Henryk Sienkiewicz · novel · 1896
AD 64: Nero’s Rome burns, and a Roman officer falls for a Christian girl.
1896
Rome
Émile Zola · novel · 1896
A young French priest comes to Rome to defend his book before the Vatican.
1829
A Roman Journal
Stendhal · travel · 1829
Stendhal’s walks through Rome: churches, gossip and ruins.