Making Sense of Rome

Abstract

This text explores how encounters with Rome relied on different senses, primarily smell and touch. Grand Tour studies usually prioritise literary and scholarly matters, and Rome as a place where sight takes precedence. Interactions based on smell and touch are in fact highly charged avenues for defining and expressing aspects of the city's experience (usually left out of modern accounts of earlier expectations of Rome), and what it amounted to once confronted as a physical site. Topics include: responses to St Peter's huge scale; perfume and odour; and walking in and touching Rome.Je recherchai pourtant et amploiai tous mes cinq sans de nature pour obtenir le titre de citoyen romain, ne fut-ce que pour l'antien honur et religieuse mémoire de son autorité. 1

FrameNet-like Annotation of Olfactory Information in Texts

“…Finally, travelers are negatively struck by the lack of sanitation of Italian cities, mentioning the 'intolerable', 'pestilential' and 'villanous' odours emanating from 'filth , mud and garbage', 'the vile streets' and 'the litter of horses and cattle'. These aspects were noted by travelers coming from Northern Europe where, already in the 18th Century, processes of urban modernisation and sanitation had been initiated (Wrigley, 2012), while Italy, including Rome, was lagging behind the rest of Europe on this issue.…”