To Be Avoided!

This work is a major disappointment, both in terms of contents and of organization.

First, it must be underscored that the author is an art critic, not a historian. Thus, he does not seem to understand various events and simply presents them at face value. For instance:
• he does not link the Crusades with restrictions imposed to Christian pilgrimages to the Holy Land;
• he does not seem to realise that the Muslims wrested Palestine manu militari from the ... Christian Eastern Roman Empire;
• he says nothing of the creation of monasteries;
• he does not appear to understand the importance of relics in the Middle Ages;
• he sees medieval papacy as a dictatorship whereas monarchy was the norm in that period;
• he blames the Pope for the sack of Rome in 1527 because he ‘waited’ one month before surrendering!

The material is generally presented in chronological order but there is often serious confusion, going for example from the 4th century to the 12th and back to the 9th in the same paragraph. Worse, many elements included in the book are off topic, such as a discussion of Velasquez, who was trained in Rome but of course worked mostly in Spain, of Dannunzio, who was also educated in Rome but lived mostly elsewhere afterwards, and of Italian Fascism _ which is in fact presented in surprisingly uncritical light.

At times marked with unwarranted vulgarity, the book seems written to allow the author to vent his blunt opinions on various topics, including television, mass tourism and Silvio Berlusconi. His main target is definitely the Church. This leads the reader to ask: why should one write about Rome if opposed to Christianity in general and to Catholicism in particular?

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