Wanted in Rome
23 Feb, 2021
Mary Wilsey
This is a tale of two young men who travelled to Rome and took up lodgings in Piazza di Spagna. One of them had tuberculosis and thought a winter in Rome might give him a longer lease on life. The other was there to accompany his sick friend but he also made the trip from London because he thought it would benefit his career as an artist and win him a Royal Academy scholarship.
They arrived in Rome in mid-November 1820 after a long journey by sea from London to Naples and then overland to Rome. Just over three months later, on 23 February 1821, John Keats died in a small room on the second floor of Piazza di Spagna 26 with only his friend Joseph Severn at his side. He was just 25. It was a difficult and lonely death.