Feltrinelli International (Via Vittorio Emanuele Orlando 84, Rome, four minutes' walk from Piazza della Repubblica, equidistant from the Termini area and the Pantheon quarter, accessible from virtually every central Rome location in 10-15 minutes on foot) is the English-language and foreign-language section of the Feltrinelli chain that provides Rome's most comprehensive selection of books in English, French, German, Spanish, and other languages. For the anglophone traveler in Italy, this matters for a reason that sounds obvious but is not: reading about Italy while in Italy is one of the most specifically pleasurable and intellectually productive travel activities available, and the book you want, the specific history of Pompeii, the novel set in Renaissance Florence, the Goethe Italian Journey, the Oriana Fallaci essays, isn't available in airport bookshops and is often out of stock in the tourist-area shops. The Feltrinelli International is where you find it.
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Feltrinelli: The Italian Publishing Culture
Who Was Giangiacomo Feltrinelli
The Feltrinelli publishing house was founded by Giangiacomo Feltrinelli (1926-1972), one of the most specific figures in postwar Italian intellectual life: a Milanese industrialist heir who became a communist, founded Italy's most important independent publishing house (Feltrinelli Editore, 1954), published the first edition of Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago in 1957 (against Soviet wishes and with the manuscript smuggled out of the USSR) and the first Italian edition of Che Guevara's Diary in 1968, became increasingly radicalized through the 1960s, joined the underground far-left terrorism movement (the GAP. Gruppi di Azione Partigiana), and died on March 14, 1972, blown up by the bomb he was placing on an electricity pylon near Milan. His publishing house continued under professional management and became the largest independent bookshop chain in Italy.
What to Find at Feltrinelli International
Via Emanuele Orlando shop (the main Feltrinelli International location in Rome) stocks: English-language literature and non-fiction across all categories, with specific strength in Italian history, art history, and travel writing. Italian-language editions of major international works. Foreign-language learning materials. Maps (the IGM topographic maps of Italy, the standard Italian hiking and detailed geographical maps, are one of the most useful products for the Italy traveler that no other central Rome bookshop stocks regularly). Travel guides. And a general humanities section that reflects the specific Feltrinelli intellectual tradition of taking ideas seriously. The English-language Italy section (guidebooks, history, art) is the most comprehensive in Rome outside the academic bookshops of the university area.
Q&A: Feltrinelli International Rome
What books about Italy should I buy at Feltrinelli?
The specific recommendations by category: Roman history: Mary Beard's SPQR (the best single-volume introduction to Roman history available in English).Italian Renaissance: Ross King's Brunelleschi's Dome and Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling (accessible narrative history at its best).Modern Italy: Tobias Jones's The Dark Heart of Italy (the most honest anglophone account of contemporary Italian politics and culture).Literary Italy: Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan Novels if you haven't read them yet.Art history: Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Artists (the Penguin abridgment) for any visit to Florence.Travel writing: Goethe's Italian Journey (the founding text of Italy travel writing).
