Reading Rome

Naturally I'm checking out lots of books about Rome from the library.  The latest one is a hefty 730 page volume: The Rome Guide: Step by Step through History's Greatest City, written by Mauro Lucentini, an Italian journalist.  I'm on page 48 and we've barely made it through the Porta del Popolo and into the Church of Santa Maria del Popolo.  Within this church are so many paintings, mosaics and sculptures by famous Italians that perhaps I should take a course on Italian art first, although I think Jen still has her books from her Italian art history courses.  Maybe I can just look at the pictures...

And guess what??  This 730 page Rome Guide is available on the Kindle!  So we could do the walks from our iPhones, since the book consists of walks through Rome describing the history behind everything.  But who really wants to walk through Rome with their nose in an iPhone?  Although we might look like natives that way...

I'm further along in Frank J. Korn's Hidden Rome, whose format of short 3-4 page chapters is just right for me.  He has spent a lot of time in Rome and pulls out a lot of history.  He has another book, A Catholic's Guide to Rome,  but our library system doesn't have a copy, although Amazon offers both a paperback and a kindle version.  I wonder if there is A Pagan's Guide to Rome.  Korn has a little chapter on "The Trattoria" and lists some of his favorites, many of which are in Trastevere and the Borgo on the west side of the Tiber.  I'm going to add them to my Google Map of Rome.  I've come to the conclusion that the new Google Maps were designed for mobile phones, where the street view doesn't look distorted as it does on my laptop.  The classic Google Map works better on computers.  I have to see how my Rome map will look on my iPhone.