Beguiling City, Bewitching Landscape, Bewildering People

Abstract

James came to Rome over a period of almost forty years, at a time of many transformations both in its urbanistic layout and in its social and political make-up. Only the idyllic Campagna seemed undisturbed and untouched by so much upheaval. Moving chiefly among Anglophones-as has mostly been the case with foreigners before and after him-he did not have the opportunity nor the interest to go beyond collecting "impressions." While he drew upon centuries-old stereotypes (as shown in his essays and letters where he nonetheless captured some pertinent traits of the genius loci ), especially in his late narratives he has the city voiced by and its inhabitants embodied in characters whose points of view and conduct reveal the multilayered facets of an intrigued and perplexed response.