Four Seasons in Rome by Anthony Doerr | An Armchair Travel Book Review

After reading Four Seasons in Rome by Anthony Doerr, not only did I want to visit Rome, I wanted to live there.

When planning a trip, I always enjoy reading books set in the destination I’m visiting. So when my family told me we were going to Rome, I knew I had to find a good one.

When I discovered that the author of one of my absolute favorite books, All the Light We Cannot See, had written a book set in Rome, I knew my search was over.

After author Anthony Doerr won the Rome Prize, he spent a year in Rome with his wife and newborn twins. In Four Seasons in Rome, Doerr brings us along to experience Rome with them. With this book, we get into this brilliant writer’s head.

If this is your first time on my site, I’ll give some background info. I read books set somewhere cool I want to visit and use those books to inspire my travels there. It all started when I decided to read books set in the city where I live, New York City, and use the book to inspire my adventures there.

It’s such a fun and unique way to explore your city. Going where the characters take you.

Reading along here might inspire you to do your own literary travel. Or it could enhance your enjoyment of armchair travel.

Although I crave travel, I’m also a legitimate homebody. Like Beth in Little Women, I love being home. I‘m a single lady with two cats, after all. Throw in an excellent book, a cat (or two), a glass of wine, and nothing beats armchair travel.

Shall we go on our armchair adventure with Four Seasons in Rome by Anthony Doerr?

Book Review: Four Seasons in Rome by Anthony Doerr

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Four Seasons in Rome by Anthony Doerr had me enchanted. The best time to read this book is before bedtime to transport you to Rome before you snooze. It’s a lovely transition into dreamland.

It won’t be all sunshine, rainbows, and umbrella pine trees, though. Moving to a whole new country comes with a learning curve.

As Doerr described the day-to-day challenges he and his wife faced in Rome, I appreciated that they were so relatable.

The author’s musings made me laugh because I could picture myself in the same scenario and getting the same outcome. Like when he walked into a hardware store and needed a key ring but instead walked out with a nightlight. Or when he just wanted to buy bread and found himself outmatched in the chaotic scene of a Roman bakery.

Doerr captured all the stress and confusion that came with moving to an entirely new place; we sweated along with him and his family as they dealt with the unbelievable summer heat in an apartment without air conditioning.

No AC! That’s a thing in Rome. I would have slept standing up against the opened fridge. You gotta sleep snuggling an ice pack in that situation.

In all seriousness, following along with Doerr and family as they lived and learned, going from Rome newbies to gaining friends and confidence, was a joy to read.

If you’re planning a trip to Rome, you’ll especially want to read Four Seasons in Rome by Anthony Doerr. If you love this author as much as I do, then that’s another great reason to read this book.

My favorite aspect of the book is how he takes you with him as he experiences Rome. I love how we get a little glimpse into how these experiences shape his writing. We’re a fly on the wall to his brilliance.

Buy Four Seasons in Rome: Bookshop | Amazon

Shall we get to the literary date? I say yes!

Full disclosure: this literary date will only scratch the surface of all Anthony Doerr and his family experienced in Rome. One day, I’d like to return to Rome to continue this literary date. Until then…

Four Seasons in Rome Literary Date

The Piazza Del Popolo

The Piazza del Popolo is inside Rome’s northern gate, the Porta Flaminia. You can see the Porta del Popolo in my featured image, where I hold up the book Four Seasons in Rome in front of it.

We took a Get Your Guide tour and learned from our guide that this piazza was the main entrance into the city during the Roman Empire. Our guide also informed us about the Egyptian obelisk depicted in the picture and the considerable effort required to transport it from Egypt.

The difficulty of the task did not bother the Romans. Our guide cheekily quipped that if it had been feasible, the Romans would have stolen an Egyptian pyramid to bring it back to Rome.

In Four Seasons in Rome, Doerr and his wife visited the church of Santa Maria del Popolo in this piazza. Doerr wrote about seeing Caravaggio’s painting, the Crucifixion of Saint Peter, inside this church. You can pay with a coin to view the painting under a spotlight.

When Doerr sees the painting lit up, he’s mesmerized:

“For the first time I understand what art critics mean when they say Caravaggio was a master at using white…the artist used maybe twenty strokes of white in a vast landscape of black, but with it he has made an entire universe spring to life.“

I was dying to see that painting, but sadly, our tour didn’t include a stop inside the church.

Narrow streets and alleys…

In Rome, you will marvel as you walk down some narrow, unassuming street and seemingly time travel back in time when you stumble upon some famous site like the Pantheon.

“Alleys rear and twist and cough up their cobblestones like big, black molars,” writes Doerr.

I’ll always be in awe while walking around Rome, passing structures that have survived for thousands of years. It’s incredible.

Doerr compares Rome to an open-air museum, calling it the Metropolitan Museum of Art the size of Manhattan. Doerr paints quite a picture describing the enormous undertaking of keeping a “museum” like this clean. All the cars driving through it blasting their exhaust all over Rome, not to mention the thousands of gelato spoons littering the Trevi Fountain.

“Try for a moment to understand how overwhelmingly many dimpled and cracking surfaces this city must try to keep clean: fonts, flower petals, pediments, railings, hieroglyphics on obelisks, the furrowed robes of ten thousand solemn Madonnas, and the plump cheeks of a hundred thousand grinning cherubs.”

Anthony Doerr is the chef’s kiss of writers.

Side note: Doerr mentions gelato and gelato spoons several times in Four Seasons in Rome, but he never mentions actually eating gelato.

I will NOT make that mistake while in Rome, and neither should you. Although, I’m sure we can assume that Doerr, his wife, and twin boys had gelato. As an avid ice cream lover, this will keep me up at night, not knowing for certain. 😉

Speaking of the Pantheon…

The Pantheon

This magnificent temple to the Roman gods will take you back in time, right into ancient Rome. Today, it serves as a functioning Catholic church with mass on Sundays and holy days.

We didn’t get to go inside during this tour, but I did back during my first trip to Rome in 2005. It’s a must-see.

In Four Seasons in Rome, a new friend tells Doerr and his wife, “…if it ever begins to snow, we should run to the Pantheon, because to see snowflakes come drifting through the hole at the top of the dome is to change your life forever.”

Doerr kept inspecting the sky, hoping for snow, but unfortunately, he learned that snow in Rome is quite rare.

For this trip, we were in Rome earlier this year in January, and like Doerr, I was hoping for snow, but all we got was wind and rain.

Is a trip to Rome every winter in order? One can dream!

St. Peter’s Basilica at Vatican City

“The huge dome of the church seeming almost to hover above the facade.”

You must read Four Seasons in Rome if for no other reason, to see how Anthony Doerr describes Vatican City and how he experiences it above all else. To remind you, Doerr was in Rome for a year in 2005.

This is a pivotal time in Rome’s history, as it marks the year Pope John Paul II passed away. He served as the head of the Catholic Church from 1978 until he died in 2005.

So Doerr and his family were in Rome when the pope passed, and the new one was elected. Doerr is there to witness it all right in Vatican City alongside the people of Rome.

I find it interesting that the novel Conclave, which was adapted into a 2024 Oscar-nominated movie, depicts the same subject matter Doerr wrote about. I’m curious to know if the author of Conclave read Four Seasons in Rome and was inspired.

Art often inspires art.

*While writing this post, Pope Francis has sadly passed away, so I’m sure a new conclave has begun. Rest in peace, Pope Francis. You were a great man whom we will all truly miss.

Piazza Navona

Piazza Navona was built atop the Stadium of Domitian in the first century AD and has three gorgeous fountains. When you walk around today, admiring its charm and watching the people bustling by, you could never imagine what used to take place here.

Our tour guide, a historian, showed his passion for Roman history as he described the types of athletic competitions that took place here.

Hmm?? Athletic competitions or gruesome torture competitions? We learned from our tour guide that it was the latter.

They had a different form of entertainment back then.

In Four Seasons in Rome, Doerr tells a less gruesome story about the rival architects Bernini and Borromini, whose work is displayed in this piazza.

Doerr writes, “Bernini’s quartet of wet, muscled river gods, their fingers thicker than my wrists, balance on the rim of their fountain fifty feet east of Borromini’s Church of St. Agnes: it is a 350-year-old architectural showdown.”

History books have rarely captured the attention of my ADHD brain, but the way Doerr tells the story of these two architects made me want to learn all I could about them.

Trevi Fountain

We didn’t go to this famous fountain during our tour, but our guide did show us one of the many “nasoni” around Rome. Nasoni fountains are drinking fountains scattered around Rome; more than two thousand exist around the city.

Our guide told us all about the city’s water and the aqueducts built in ancient times at the order of Roman emperors. It all sounds very complex and impressive. All I know is that you can drink the water.

Our guide happily demonstrated how the spout worked in one fountain while my germaphobe brother frowned.

While in Rome, my backpacking friends and I eagerly filled our reusable water bottles with water from the fountains. The water is fresh and regularly tested, so you know it’s safe to drink. And you’ll be thankful for those fountains on a very hot day.

In Four Seasons in Rome, Doerr writes, “At the end of the Empire, Roman aqueducts brought 1,747,000 cubic meters of water into the city every day. With a population just shy of one million, that amounted to 461.5 gallons per person. Every day.“

Wow!

I must reveal that the Trevi Fountain is not Doerr’s favorite fountain in Rome; in fact, he refers to it as an “engulfing mess” but admits that the constant flushing of water of the fountains is essential in Rome.

The fountains are the “circulatory system” of Rome. Lean over the rail, be like Doerr, and “hurl pennies at the gods.”

Baccano

As far as I’m aware, in Four Seasons in Rome, Anthony Doerr and his family did not go to this Mediterranean restaurant near the Trevi Fountain, but my family and I did!

Fair warning: Being from NYC, I know restaurants near major sites tend to cater to tourists. However, our trusted foodie cousin-in-law highly recommended this restaurant, and she said she still dreams about the food, so we had to go.

In addition to the delicious cacao e pepe and tiramisu pictured, I also got these yummy, crispy artichokes marinated in some sort of magical Italian concoction—you’re probably thinking olive oil.

And you’re probably right. But it made me realize that I probably don’t consume real olive oil in the U.S. I learned this from our Italian tour guide in Tuscany. Research before buying.

Anyway, did I mention the waiter prepared the tiramisu right before our eyes at the table? I wanted to marry that waiter right then and there.

Pro tip: Consider stopping by Il Gelato di San Crispino for a second dessert nearby. You’ll thank me later.

Anthony Doerr may not go for gelato, but I will eat ALL the gelato in Rome. In fact, when I spend a year in Rome, my book will be entitled Four Seasons of Gelato in Rome: On Gelato, More Gelato, and the Biggest Cup of Gelato in the History of the World.

And don’t worry, Anthony, I would not throw my spoon away in the Trevi Fountain or the Tiber River, I should add.

Here I am in Rome, striking my best model pose in the summer of 2005. Surprisingly, I’m not holding a cup of gelato.

While reading Four Seasons in Rome, it tickled me to realize that I was there the same year as Anthony Doerr and his family. In a sense, my Four Seasons in Rome literary date began in 2005 and continued in 2025. Hopefully, it won’t take another twenty years to get back.

For now, this concludes my literary date with Four Seasons in Rome, but, as I mentioned earlier, it only scratches the surface of all the places this book could inspire you to visit.

I can’t wait to return to fully explore where Doerr stayed in Trastevere; I will admire the umbrella pines, walk across the Garibaldi Bridge, then salute Giuseppe Garibaldi at the Vatican, and sip a latte macchiato. A side trip to Umbria is a must, too!

And so much more! Have you read Four Seasons in Rome and then visited Rome? Where did Four Seasons in Rome inspire you to go? I’d love to know in the comments.

Buy Four Seasons in Rome: Bookshop | Amazon

Or find it at your local library!

If you enjoyed my Four Seasons in Rome literary date, then you might enjoy more:

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