Meeting the author. Special Guest: Lorenza Foschini, journalist

Marco Molendini
"Sotto il sole di Roma"
minimum fax, 2025

In the 1970s, terrorism filled the streets. The dolce vita had vanished even from memory, Chet Baker wandered around lost, and Flaiano and Fellini were no longer in Fregene. To cool off, people drove up and down in the evenings, hunting for grattachecche and watermelon slices. Then, suddenly, a cloud of dust and mosquitoes rose around the Villa Ada lake, and the Roman Summer exploded, a perfect invention for a city where the nights were an invitation to let time pass. The spark of what would be called the reflux was ignited. Led by the party-loving avant-garde, Rome escaped the grip of terrorism in the very worst year, 1977, and moved from the cinema lighting up at Massenzio to Dalla and De Gregori wondering how sailors do it at the Flaminio stadium, from the poetic delirium of Castelporziano to the fantastic Brazilian carnival in Piazza Navona and the endless nights at Hemingway and then at the Bar della Pace.

After Pepito. The Prince of Jazz, Marco Molendini adds a precious new chapter to one of the best stories of Rome from the postwar period to the present day, and he does so by telling it also through the events of Il Messaggero, which for decades served as its mirror and natural observatory: from the years of the young duke Perrone to the revelry of the Ferruzzi era, amidst changes in ownership and editorial policy, strikes and occupations, political interference, and major news investigations. Filled with anecdotes and populated by bizarre characters moving in a city where, as Manganelli said, "everything is too much," Sotto il sole di Roma is an ironic, exuberant, affectionate, and melancholic farewell to a long season of emotion and enthusiasm, in which music, culture, and politics speak a single language, and a moving portrait of the city of illusions and all the dreams it never ceases to invent and cherish.