Luca Scarlini's 'Teatri d'amore' Maps Rome Through Fourteen Historic Homes

Luca Scarlini's latest book 'Teatri d'amore' offers an unconventional portrait of Rome by tracing fourteen addresses in the city center, each corresponding to a home once inhabited by key cultural figures of the 19th and 20th centuries. Published by Nottetempo, the volume reconstructs Rome's cultural life through an invisible map of residences belonging to artists, intellectuals, cinema and theater actors, and fashion personalities. These homes served as both stages for memorable works and refuges during difficult times. The book's itinerary includes the Roman houses of Giacomo Leopardi, Friedrich Nietzsche, Giacomo Balla, Eleonora Duse, and Mario Schifano, where private life and work often merged, giving birth to novels, poems, and artworks. Scarlini, a essayist, playwright, and professor at Accademia di Brera, is joined by visual artist Alvise Bittente (Venice, 1973), whose drawings, writing, and installation work complement the text without overpowering it. The result is a dual reading experience through words and images, constructing an articulated map of the capital, where streets still bear the names of former residents and walls witnessed the conception and creation of significant artistic and literary works. More than a collection of literary anecdotes, the book narrates a historical period when Rome was one of the world's most vibrant cultural centers, attracting the finest intellectuals of the time—a faded glory of which only a pale memory remains.