cover image A THOUSAND BELLS AT NOON: A Roman's Guide to the Secrets and Pleasures of His Native City

A THOUSAND BELLS AT NOON: A Roman's Guide to the Secrets and Pleasures of His Native City

G. Franco Romagnoli, Franco G. Romagnoli, . . Steerforth, $26 (300pp) ISBN 978-1-58642-036-9

Despite the subtitle, this book wavers too much between guidebook and memoir, coming up short in both. Romagnoli, a former restaurateur, who starred with his wife in the mid-1970s' television show The Romagnolis' Table, and who published a bestselling cookbook by the same title, left Rome at age 26. What little narrative exists here concerns a six-month return trip that Romagnoli, now widowed and remarried in his 70s, makes to rediscover the city of his youth. In 13 essays with titles such as "Managing Rome" and "Faith in Rome," the author unleashes a torrent of generalized information about history, government, architecture and transportation, among other topics. But Romagnoli relies too much on clichés: Romans are loud and like to exaggerate; Roman men are mama's boys; Romans are obsessed with fashion; Roman bureaucrats are lazy and take bribes. The author's favorite idea is "Rome is a paradox," which is restated repeatedly. Most disappointing is the section "Eating in Rome"—one might expect stronger food writing from someone with Romagnoli's background. The book is most compelling when Romagnoli cuts loose from the deluge of information and shares some personal experiences, such as his dinner with a former schoolmate who he once saved from drowning; his recollections of eating "day-fresh" eggs as a child; and his accounts of working as a young cinematographer in the early days of Cinecittà, the famed epicenter of Italian cinema. In his prologue, Romagnoli gives his reason for undertaking his trip: "I realized that all I knew of Rome was her skin, what can be seen and found in a thousand guidebooks." Sadly, there is too little of the intimate experience that Romagnoli clearly knows, and the information he provides rarely goes beyond what one can find in a decent guidebook. (Mar.)