Fuller, Hawthorne, and Imagining Urban Spaces in Rome

American writers in Rome during the Risorgimento

“…[…] If one thousand Americans performed the “sight-seeing” of Rome in 1860, the number had reached thirty thousand by 1900.’ Freeman, Terry and Brown are still listed as artists present in Rome, but also Chapman, Rothermel, ‘Page, the distinguished colorist’ who had just finished the ‘painting of the lamented Crawford,’ Wild, Thompson, ‘Whitridge, a landscape painter,’ Tilton, ‘Nichols, a follower of Page’s theories,’ besides the poet Read. Regarding the function of the urban space in the writings of Fuller and Hawthorne, see at least Bailey (2002).…”

“…28It is worthy of mention that several characters in Hawthorne’s novels have been considered as loosely based on Margaret Fuller, whom the novelist had met in 1839: Hester Prynne, the character in The Scarlet Letter , a novel that Hawthorne wrote in 1850, is based on Margaret Fuller’s character and thoughts on the condition of women, whereas in The Blithedale Romance it is the character of Zenobia that assumes aspects of Fuller’s personality. On the relationship between Fuller and Hawthorne, see at least: Bailey (2002); Kesterson (1999); Mitchell (1999); Mitchell (1995 and 2000) (both articles are revisions of chapters in Mitchell (1998: 12–40, 41–92); Vásquez (2003); Wade (1940).…”