In the spring of 1959, a twenty-one-year-old Australian named Robert Hughes made his first visit to Rome. The young student of architecture, as it turned out, had a gift for writing as well as a ravenous, penetrating eye. Though he gained in sophistication, he never lost his initial brashness, and that is why, in the end, he has such an original, persuasive take on the Eternal City. The reasons for Rome's staying power, Hughes argues, have to do with the city's eternal embrace of crassness…
