CITY · ITALYBooks set in Rome
41.903, 12.496
52 books · 43 authors · 1844–2025
52 books here
Most-set authors
Colleen McCullough (4) · Robert Harris (3) · Alberto Moravia (3) · Robert Graves (2) · Henry James (2) · Nadia Owusu (1)
Genres
literary fiction (12) · historical fiction (5) · young adult (2) · fantasy (1) · horror (1) · romance (1) · thriller & suspense (1) · mystery & crime (1)
Books set here
Set in Rome (38)
Augustus
John Williams
Ancient Roman Empire setting
Beach Music
Pat Conroy
expatriate refuge city
Beard's Roman Women
Anthony Burgess
screenwriter finds love in Rome
Blood and Gold
Anne Rice
Marius ancient Rome origin
Caesar's Women
Colleen McCullough
Julius Caesar's Rome in the late Republic 60s-50s BC
Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio
Amara Lakhous
Piazza Vittorio apartment
Claudius the God
Robert Graves
Ancient Rome setting
Death in Rome
Wolfgang Koeppen
postwar Rome setting
Dictator
Robert Harris
Ancient Rome — final years of the Republic
Early One Morning
Virginia Baily
occupied Rome 1943 and 1970s
Fortune's Favorites
Colleen McCullough
Ancient Rome 83–69 BCE — Sulla, Pompey, and the young Julius Caesar
Hadrian the Seventh
Frederick Rolfe
Vatican — George Rose elected Pope Hadrian VII
History: A Novel
Elsa Morante
Rome under WWII occupation
I, Claudius
Robert Graves
imperial Roman court setting
Imperium
Robert Harris
Ancient Rome under the late Republic, setting for Cicero's rise
Lustrum
Robert Harris
Ancient Rome, 63 BC, Cicero's consulship
Me and You
Niccolo Ammaniti
Rome, year 2000
Memoirs of Hadrian
Marguerite Yourcenar
Hadrian's imperial Rome
Quo Vadis
Henryk Sienkiewicz
ancient imperial Rome
Romanzo Criminale
Giancarlo De Cataldo
Banda della Magliana Rome
Rome Stories
Jhumpa Lahiri
Rome as home and exile
That Awful Mess on Via Merulana
Carlo Emilio Gadda
Via Merulana apartment crime
The Agony and the Ecstasy
Irving Stone
Sistine Chapel commission
The Conformist
Alberto Moravia
Fascist Rome 1930s; Marcello Clerici works for the political police under Mussolini and is ordered to assassinate his fo
The Count of Monte Cristo
Alexandre Dumas
The First Man in Rome
Colleen McCullough
Ancient late Republic Rome, Gaius Marius's rise to power
The Ghosts of Rome
Joseph O'Connor
Nazi-occupied Rome
The Grass Crown
Colleen McCullough
Ancient Rome of the late Republic era, setting for all Masters of Rome books
The Ides of March
Thornton Wilder
Julius Caesar Rome epistolary
The Imperfectionists
Tom Rachman
expat newspaper staff
The Portrait of a Lady
Henry James
Isabel's enchantment with Rome; later residence at Palazzo Roccanero after marriage
The Public Image
Muriel Spark
film star and her manufactured image
The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone
Tennessee Williams
postwar Rome, Via Veneto
The Secret History
Donna Tartt
Henry and Bunny's tense winter-break trip to Rome, pivotal to the plot's unraveling
The Woman of Rome
Alberto Moravia
Fascist-era Rome
Two Women
Alberto Moravia
Trastevere apartment opening
Everything Is Poison
Joy McCullough
17th-c. Rome; Tofana apothecary setting
The Ragazzi
Pier Paolo Pasolini
Postwar Rome slum borgate
Also featuring Rome (14)
Aftershocks
Nadia Owusu
Key childhood posting; formative years following her UN-official father
Cleopatra: A Life
Stacy Schiff
Rome where Cleopatra resided with Caesar and where her fate was ultimately decided
Daisy Miller
Henry James
Rome tragic conclusion
In the Company of the Courtesan
Sarah Dunant
Sack of Rome opening
London Calling
James Ponti
the Rome rescue mission
Margaret Fuller: A New American Life
Megan Marshall
Where Fuller reported on the 1848 Italian revolution and died at sea returning
The Flamethrowers
Rachel Kushner
Italian political unrest and Moto Valera factory storyline
The Jetsetters
Amanda Eyre Ward
Cruise port stop; family drama unfolds here
The Pope and Mussolini
David I. Kertzer
Rome where Mussolini's government and the Vatican negotiated their fateful alliance
The Red Arrow
William Brewer
Rome; departure city for the Frecciarossa round-trip as narrator searches for a disappeared physicist
The Talented Mr. Ripley
Patricia Highsmith
Ripley assumes Dickie's identity
The Teeth of the Tiger
Tom Clancy
Mossad station chief assassination
The Unconsoled
Kazuo Ishiguro
Trastevere apartment opening
Angels & Demons
Dan Brown
Illuminati meeting place
Notable locations in Rome
Campo Marzio1Castel Sant'Angelo1Ostia Antica1Pantheon, Rome1Piazza Navona1Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II, Rome1Pietralata, Rome1Villa Adriana, Tivoli1
Nearby books
The Conformist
Alberto Moravia
0 km · Rome
Angels & Demons
Dan Brown
0 km · Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome
Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio
Amara Lakhous
1 km · Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II, Rome
Everything Is Poison
Joy McCullough
2 km · Campo Marzio
Conclave
Robert Harris
4 km · Vatican City
The Pope and Mussolini
David I. Kertzer
4 km · Vatican City
The Ragazzi
Pier Paolo Pasolini
5 km · Pietralata, Rome
After Sappho
Selby Wynn Schwartz
7 km · Italy