Arkady Ippolitov is the curator of the cabinet of Italian engravings in the State Hermitage, the greatest expert and subtle connoisseur of Italian history and culture. The hero of his book is Rome, an amazing city, a city of Great Style. Many characters flash across the pages: popes and emperors, the greatest artists and brilliant architects, charming beauties and irresistible adventurers - the brilliant retinue of the Eternal City. The unforced ease of a talented writer, who also has enormous knowledge and impeccable taste, fills the pages with love and graceful irony. Basilicas and palaces, squares and fountains, statues and paintings come to life under his pen. They also become characters - each has their own story, their own destiny, but the whole motley kaleidoscope of various individual stories merges into a single narrative, which cannot be called anything other than a novel. The text contains expressions from the field of profanity.