When John Henry Newman travels to Rome as the Church’s most famous convert in October 1846, the Vatican offers him a freshly decorated apartment. Unfortunately it is not ready. So Newman and Ambrose St John, a member of his community at Littlemore outside Oxford, find themselves lodged in a hotel with the archbishop of Damascus, a New Zealand bishop and the head of the Trappists. It is nevertheless “a palace of filth” where they dare not unpack because of the fleas and dirt.
Next day the two Englishmen hear Pope Pius IX celebrating Mass at St Peter’s, before paying a series of calls and setting off to see the sights on foot as ordinary pilgrims. All this is recounted in the easy flow of letters Newman writes to friends and family at home, recording their activities in brief notes.
