Rome
Good Fit
- Readers who enjoy Zola's naturalist, exhaustively descriptive style (architecture, history, cityscape) and are ready for a slow-paced classic
- Readers interested in the internal politics of the 19th-century Catholic Church, Vatican censorship, and crises of faith
- Fans of "palace drama" woven from old aristocratic family secrets, marriage annulments, and inheritance intrigue
Not a Fit
- Readers looking for a fast-paced, modern-style novel
- Readers who'll find the text heavy going without any background on the Catholic Church hierarchy or 19th-century Roman history
The novel opens with Pierre arriving in Rome after an exhausting overnight train journey. Rather than going straight to the palazzo, he has the driver take him to the church of San Pietro on the Janiculum hill, wanting to take in the whole city at a glance.
Looking out over the panoramic view from the terrace, Pierre is overcome with emotion and relives his last three years: after returning from "Lourdes" with his faith utterly shattered, he lived a mechanical existence in his house in Neuilly, suffering like a wounded animal.
One autumn evening, fate brought him together with an old priest, Abbé Rose, who ran a small refuge for abandoned children in the Charonne district — at his side, Pierre gradually devoted himself to charity work, though he never recovered the faith he had lost.
After touring the city, Pierre finally makes his way to the Palazzo Boccanera on Via Giulia — a massive, weathered 16th-century building whose façade bears the family's coat of arms: a winged dragon beneath the motto "Bocca Nera, Alma Rossa" (Black Mouth, Red Soul).
He is greeted at the palazzo by Victorine Bosquet, a Frenchwoman who has served the family for twenty-five years, and learns who makes up the household: Cardinal Pio Boccanera; his sister, "Donna" Serafina; his niece Benedetta, who has left her husband and petitioned the Pope for an annulment; and his nephew, Prince Dario.
Victorine explains that Pierre owes his stay to Benedetta — she received his book from the Viscount de la Choue, read it, then learned it had been denounced to the Congregation of the Index, alerted Pierre, and invited him to Rome to stay at the palazzo.
- Zola's naturalist thoroughness: every building and street is rendered in full architectural and historical detail, until the city itself all but becomes the protagonist
- The panoramic overlook scene runs in parallel with Pierre's inner monologue about his crisis of faith — the exterior view mirrors his interior state
- Symbolic details, like the Boccanera coat of arms' motto "Black Mouth, Red Soul," foreshadow the direction the plot will take
- Description and historical/architectural exposition dominate over dialogue — a journalistic, documentary quality typical of the Three Cities series
Another classic French novel that turns a city (Paris, this time) into something close to the protagonist, with exhaustive architectural and historical description
Another "church novel" that treats hierarchy, censorship, and religious intrigue with similar seriousness
The first book of the Three Cities trilogy — where Pierre Froment's crisis of faith begins, best read before Rome
Short answer: the last of the Boccanera line, Dario and Benedetta, die on the same day from poisoned figs, while Pierre, in a secret audience, renounces his book before the Pope and leaves Rome having lost his faith.
First, on the way back from Frascati, Pierre and Count Prada pick up Father Santobono, who is carrying a basket of fresh figs for Cardinal Boccanera. At a roadside inn a black hen pecks at a fig and drops dead as if struck by lightning; Prada tells Pierre it was a fight between two hens. That same night, at the Buongiovanni ball, word spreads that the Church body has annulled Benedetta's marriage to Prada. Prada writes the Cardinal a warning note, yet the figs are put on the Cardinal's table the next day all the same.
The next day, after lunch with the Cardinal and some figs, Dario feels ill and takes to his bed. When the Cardinal gives a fig to his parrot Tata and it collapses dead, he realises it is poison. Benedetta accuses Prada; the Cardinal says Prada is innocent and that the figs were meant for himself, senses Cardinal Sanguinetti's influence behind Santobono, yet demands silence for the sake of the Church. Doctor Giordano will officially call it a «contagious fever». Dario dies; Benedetta lies down beside him, embraces him, and her heart gives out in his arms. Before dying she orders Pierre to tell Prada's father that she has cursed his son.
That evening at nine, in a secret audience arranged by Monsignor Nani, Pierre finds himself face to face with Pope Leo XIII in the Vatican. The Pope says he has read the book, finds it dangerous and guilty, and refuses both any concession on temporal power and the wish for a «new religion». Pierre pleads in tears for the poor, then says: «Holy Father, I submit and I reject my book.» The Pope is pleased and forgives him.
The next day Nani tells Pierre that he has done exactly what was wanted. Don Vigilio is terrified of the railway-porter priest Paparelli, and Cardinal Boccanera hides the truth and has the two bodies placed in one coffin. With Orlando, Pierre calls his book a chimera but does not deliver Benedetta's curse. Leaving Rome by train, he becomes convinced that Catholicism cannot be renewed. Even so, rather than leaving the priesthood, he decides to carry on. By the next morning he will be back in Paris.
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