As of: March 23, 2024, 4:00 p.m
By: Marc Schreib
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With a scarf and tie: Golo Maurer in the March sun in the middle of Rome.
© private
“Rome – City for Life” by Grünwalder Golo Maurer is not a travel guide.
However, the book can be used very well when traveling in Rome.
Travel guides in book form seem superfluous to many people because you can get enough information from various websites.
Dumont's art travel guides are for lovers and can only be purchased second-hand.
But there is a third type of exploration when it comes to city trips: special literature that adds another dimension to your own experience, a sixth sense for the new surroundings.
For example, a biography of Sophie de La Roche, which is available in Speyer.
In the city book “Rome – City for Life” Golo Maurer (52) is an ideal companion far off the beaten path of repetitive platitudes of the Centro Storico, the historic center of Rome.
Because he is not a tourist, he lives here.
And how!
Grew up in Grünwald
The prodigal son comes home to Grünwald at least twice a year to maintain family ties.
Golo Maurer grew up in Grünwald and went to school at the Oberhaching high school.
At a time when the Grünwald High School did not yet exist.
He took the 25 tram into the city, then on to the art history institute on Georgenstrasse and soon had his eye on the Italian Renaissance.
One could say that she took him away to Rome, from where he never returned in spirit (“you can't choose your place of birth, but sometimes you can choose your place of life”).
For several years he has been head of the library at the Max Planck Institute for Art History above the Spanish Steps.
That's something to be proud of.
In his latest book, the author gets very personal and makes eight attempts in eight chapters to make sure of his city, Rome, and to share this treasure with the reader.
He found his first accommodation during his studies with French sisters not far from the art history institute: “So I and my suitcase fit right into this Hieronymus housing, which opens up so wonderfully to the world, the most modest and at the same time most princely of all dwellings, half Heiligenklause, half Good-for-nothing romance.”
Unpacked suitcase to stay
In this classic, timeless, narrative style, which always accurately describes its subject, the 52-year-old author confesses: He unpacked his bags to stay in this city, in his heart, forever.
He could easily have followed up with five volumes on the Pantheon, churches, Roman architecture and painting.
No thanks!
At the host's home
Instead, he prefers to take the reader into the everyday districts, which contain the beauties and also the harsh realities of a historic cosmopolitan city, so that at the end you get a good idea of the Roman quarters without ever having been there.
You can go to the flea market at Porta Portese and even go home to the author.
Because the Casa is of paramount importance in Rome and all of Italy.
The owner of the house doesn't skimp on amusing descriptions, such as what distinguishes the roofer from the antenna technician (Antennista).
The latter “climbs onto the roof and steps over the tiles, which give way under his footsteps like rotten bones.
What doesn't break gets moved.
That’s right, the Antennista is an antennaist and not a roofer.” The book is full of such descriptions, they have been tested and confirmed by experience.
But there are also painful sequences and chapters that start well and end with a loss.
But everyone has to read it for themselves.
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What is important to mention is his theory of the so-called Sistabenismo, i.e. the state of letting oneself go: “the tacit agreement of an estimated 50 million Italians to keep quiet and not start a revolt or even a revolution for as long as they can say about themselves : Si sta bene.” According to Golo Maurer, it is a well-being that the government has nothing to do with.
Very plausible.
You definitely have to discuss such a claim over a glass of Aperol or Campari Spritz in the Piazza Pantheon.
The book
“Rome – City for Life” by Golo Maurer was published by Rowohlt Verlag in 2024 and has 336 pages.
Price: 28 euros.