"You fall in love with Rome very slowly, bit by bit—but for a lifetime," wrote Nikolai Gogol. Many Russian writers, poets, artists, historians, and political figures experienced the pull of Rome—those who considered the “Eternal City” their second homeland. In Alexey Kara-Murza’s view, no European culture attracted Russians the way Italian culture did. In his book, Alexey Kara-Murza brings together memories and fascinating facts about Orest Kiprensky’s, Zinaida Volkonskaya’s, Karl Bryullov’s, Nikolai Gogol’s, Ivan Turgenev’s, Boris Zaytsev’s, Pavel Muratov’s, as well as Nikolai Stankevich’s, Ivan Aksakov’s, Pavel Milyukov’s, and Vladimir Vysotsky’s time in Rome. This book is akin to a guidebook, compiled with the participation of the most remarkable people of the 19th–20th centuries.