E. R. Chamberlin (1926–2006)

I picked up this book because I thought the title was funny. Having only a vague understanding of the history of the Catholic church (and European politics during the Middle Ages), I got a fair amount out of this book. It's probably not a great work of history, but I found it well written in an elevated-gossip style. Some of these popes were ... pretty bad! (So were some of the non popes.). Another thing I found interesting was that there were periods of years where it's not really clear whose was in charge of the church. One criticism I had was that Stephen VI, who exhumed his predecessor and put him on trial (the Cadaver Synod), wasn't profiled outside a few paragraphs in the introduction.… (mer)

Although this is a pretty old publication (1976), it has the classic hallmark of the Great Cities series, giving a thorough and insightful account of the city in its context, covering both the classical age and the modern period. The photographs show their vintage by the generally brown cast and slight fuzziness, but this only adds to their authenticity (no Photoshop here), and the aerial views of the major architectural features are excellent - e.g. the Spanish steps (featured also on the cover), which can only be appreciated in the whole, and not so much from the ground. An altogether delightful book (it loses a star only for its age), well worth the trouble of locating a used copy.… (mer)