Alberto Angela won't leave you: under the Christmas tree his book on the burning of Rome

The popularizer Alberto Angela is increasingly the personality of the moment: not only is his Ulysses on Rai Uno depopulated, even with reruns, and he has now become a firebrand on social media, but now the hugely popular TV host has a new publishing project in store. These are three books on theNeronian fire in Rome, with the first to be released on November 24 (just in time for Christmas presents) and will be published by Harper Collins, a U.S. publisher specializing in nonfiction.

The first volume of the Nero trilogy is titled Rome and its life before the fire of 64 AD. The narrative follows two vigiles, Vindex and Saturninus, and takes readers to a Rome very different from the one the collective imagination associates with those years: it is a Rome largely made of wood, filled with stores lining the streets, a multicultural Rome reconstructed through the consultation of numerous archaeological data, ancient sources and experts in history but also in meteorology and fires. “The narrative device for exploring Rome in 64 AD,” Alberto Angela said on his social profile, “was to follow two firefighters on their daily patrol. Their route will let us discover the southern part of Rome. While, for the northern part, we followed two very famous figures such as Pliny the Elder and Titus, the future Emperor. I have used the pen as if it were a camera: following their steps and using their eyes, I have tried to let you breathe in the atmosphere of that time, imagining what you might have seen and heard around the city in the hours immediately before the catastrophe: from the chaos of the streets and markets, to the hell of the tanneries, from life in the working-class insulae to the tailors’ stores, from the bowels of the Circus Maximus to the bedlam of the Suburra, from the marbles of the Forum to the multi-ethnic atmospheres of some of the neighborhoods, from the Pantheon (quite different) to the immense Baths of Nero that occupied almost a quarter (right where the Senate stands today)... all the people you will cross paths with really lived in Rome during that period and are the result of meticulous research on tombstones and ancient sources. I have tried, in short, to give as much verisimilitude as possible to the tale.”

This, then, is the book due out on Nov. 24. For the other two, however, there will be a wait. The second book, due out in 2021, will take the reader inside the days of the fire that destroyed Rome, “an event in some respects fundamental to human history,” Alberto Angela points out, “but about which, strangely enough, too little has been spoken and is known. Precisely for this reason, in the description of the fire I adopted the multidisciplinary approach that I have long breathed during my years of excavations and field research, in which an entire team composed of experts in various fields deals with the data that emerge, thus giving more information to reconstruct the past, exactly as happens in a forensic investigation at the site of a crime. Thus, with the support of a formidable team consisting of fire department engineers, historians, archaeologists and even meteorologists, we have produced the most realistic and truthful account of the events that occurred. This is the first time that such an approach has been applied to the narrative of the events of the fire of 64 A.D., and I am convinced that in this way we have succeeded in returning a complete and very faithful picture of what really happened. And, where it has not been possible to verify the facts with certainty, the reconstruction formulated is the most realistic and plausible.”

Finally, the third volume, will be devoted to what happened after the fire and how Rome was reborn after the tragedy. In all volumes there will also be room for an in-depth analysis of the controversial and difficult figure of Nero. According to Alberto Angela, it is “the book I always wanted to read about the burning of Rome, but was never able to find. Simply because fire in Nero’s capital is a subject very little dealt with, with very rare exceptions.”

The popularizer initially planned to do only one book, but given the amount of information that emerged Alberto Angela followed up with the desire to return the most faithful account possible of this important event, hence the decision to dedicate a trilogy to the fire of Rome. “The style,” Alberto Angela concludes, “is the one you know from my previous books: the content is history book-like, while the style is novel-like. It helped me a lot that I have lived for more than 50 years in Rome. It was thus possible to reconstruct with great precision the atmospheres that will accompany you in the story, from the morning cuts of light, to the glare of the marbles, the sound of the Tiber, the heat and still air of a scorching summer... The tale begins with a woman, as is almost always the case in my books. Her eyes watch a sunset ... on fire.”

For those who would like more information or would like to reserve the book, you can go to the dedicated page on the Harper Collins publishing house website.

Pictured: Alberto Angela with the new book. Ph. Credit Barbara Ledda

Alberto Angela won't leave you: under the Christmas tree his book on the burning of Rome

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