Plaque to the French Writer Stendhal, Hotel Minerva, Rome

The Writing is on the Wall

30/11/2019

Plaque to the French Writer Stendhal, Hotel Minerva, Rome

Plaque to Stendhal

Over the years Rome has erected a number of plaques to mark the presence of the many foreign writers, who, for longer or shorter periods, made the Eternal City their home.

A plaque that is particularly close to my heart is to be found on the Hotel Minerva, which lies in the piazza of the same name. It pays tribute to the great French writer Marie-Henri Beyle (1783-1842), better known by his nom-de-plume Stendhal, who lived there from 1834 until 1836 when it was the Palazzo Conti.

Stendhal is hailed as the author of Promenades Dans Rome (Walks in Rome), a guide that rendered him worthy of being called a Roman ('RENDONO DEGNO DEL NOME DI ROMANO'). He published the book in 1828 and it soon became the standard guide to the Eternal City for French visitors.

The plaque also notes that whilst living in Palazzo Conti Stendhal embarked on the novel Lucien Leuwen and his autobiography Vie de Henry Brulard.

In addition to Stendhal, there are plaques in Rome to such writers as Nikolai Gogol, Henrik Ibsen, Hans Christian Anderson, James Joyce, Thomas Mann, Sir Walter Scott, John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Robert Browning & Elizabeth Barrett Browning.