Page 138 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Rome

136  ROME AREA B Y AREA

lock of Keats’s hair, some
fragments of Shelley’s bones in
a tiny urn and a garish carnival
mask picked up by Lord Byron
as a souvenir of a trip to
Venice. You can visit the room
where Keats died, though all
of the original furniture was
burnt after his death, on
papal orders.

8 Babington’s
Tea Rooms
Piazza di Spagna 23. Map 5 A2.
Tel 06-678 6027. @ 116, 117, 119.
q Spagna. Open 9am–9:30pm daily. Purveyors of English breakfasts to homesick
Closed Dec 25. 7 exiles since 1896
Bust of Shelley by Moses Ezekiel These august, old-fashioned 9 Spanish Steps
tea rooms were opened in Scalinata della Trinità dei Monti,
7 Keats-Shelley 1896 by two Englishwomen, Piazza di Spagna. Map 5 A2.
Memorial House Anna Maria and Isabel Cargill @ 116, 117, 119. q Spagna.
Babington, to serve homesick
Piazza di Spagna 26. Map 5 A2. British tourists with scones, In the 17th century the French
Tel 06-678 4235. @ 116, 117, 119. jam, and pots of Earl Grey tea. owners of Trinità dei Monti
q Spagna. Open 10am–1pm, The food remains homey – decided to link the church with
2–6pm Mon–Sat. Closed Dec 8, Dec shepherd’s pie for a winter Piazza di Spagna by building a
23–Jan 1. & 8 reserve in advance. lunch, muffins and cinnamon magnificent new flight of steps.
= ∑ keats-shelley-house.org toast for tea – although these They also planned an equestrian
days the menu offers pancakes statue of King Louis XIV at the
In November 1820 the English with maple syrup for breakfast top. Pope Alexander VII Chigi
poet John Keats came to stay as well as eggs Benedict and was not too happy at the
with his friend, the painter the traditional bacon and egg prospect of erecting a statue of
Joseph Severn, in a dusty pink
house, the Casina Rossa, on the
corner of the Spanish Steps.
Suffering from consumption,
Keats had been sent to Rome
by his doctor, in the hope
that the mild, dry climate
would help the young man’s
recovery. Depressed because
of scathing criticism of his
work and tormented by his
love for a young girl named
Fanny Brawne, Keats died the
following February, aged 25.
His death inspired fellow
poet Percy Bysshe Shelley to
write the poem Mourn not for
Adonais. In July 1822 Shelley
himself was drowned in a
boating accident in the Gulf
of La Spezia off the coast of
Liguria. Keats, Shelley, and
Severn are all buried in Rome’s
Protestant Cemetery (see p207).
In 1906 the house was
bought by an Anglo-American
association and preserved as
a memorial and library in
honor of English Romantic
poets. The relics include a Barcaccia Fountain at the foot of the magnificent Spanish Steps

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