Rome
THE two essential virtues in a guidebook are orderly arrangement and unambiguous accuracy. Rome, by Y. and E. R. Labande (Nicholas Kaye, 30s.), has neither. An awkward translation from the French, it gives the reader an impression of being scuffled round the sights of Rome by a knowledgeable but incoherent chasseur. Nevertheless, it is to be recom- mended. Far more than ,half its 267 pages are devoted to photographs, most of them clear, sharp, unsubtle, typical. No camera can carry the splendour of the townscapes that stretch, morning and evening, below the Pincio and the Aventine. But here is the midday City of short, deep shadows, statues, fountains, terraces, arcades, courtyards, pediments, black en- tranceways and washing hung out to dry. Anyone who is not stirred by it deserves to live and die in
Previous page
