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and modern Rome; the image is of a Freud who rejected medieval and Renaissance Rome.95 Nothing could be farther from the truth, and (oddly enough) the evidence for the erroneousness of such an interpretation is abundantly provided by Jones himself. First, there is the ambivalence expressed in the statement “I could not freely enjoy the second Rome”: Freud did not say he could not enjoy Catholic Rome, only that he could not enjoy it freely. Moreover, Freud found intolerable the “Lie of salvation.” With this curiously strident tone, what Freud was communicating was his anger that salvation does not exist; there is here a clear sense of disappointment. It is as though something that Freud had hoped for did not happen—or, one might say, that someone he had hoped to meet was not there.
Certainly another difficulty with the Jones thesis is that, at the time of Freud’s visits at the turn of the century, Rome had a very strong, profoundly Catholic atmosphere—much more so than is the case today. In those days, modernism had not yet affected the city in all its frenetic, secularist, and materialistic ways as it has today. It was a time when churches and church bells, Christian pilgrims, and religious processions were an essential part of Rome’s outward (and inward) character. Catholic religious figures (priests and monsignors, monks, nuns) in clerical dress were omnipresent. In short, anyone who was seriously disturbed by Christianity—in particular, by Roman Catholicism—would have had real difficulty in developing a strong liking for the Rome of 80 years ago. Evidence indeed shows that Freud was positively drawn by many things Christian in Rome and elsewhere in Italy. One need merely look at the sorts of things Freud visited and described in Rome and in other Italian locales. In 1898, before he had yet been able to bring himself to go to Rome, he was already speaking of “our lovely Italy,” on the basis of his travels in the northern part of the country.96 In a visit to the town of Aquileia, lie wrote that “several hundred of the prettiest Friulian girls had gathered in the Cathedral for High Mass. [It was, in fact, Easter Mass, though this is not always indicated.97] The splendor of the old Romanesque Basilica was comforting in the midst of the modern poverty.”98 Once Freud broke the ice with Rome, he went as often as he could and constantly praised Rome and its effect on his emotional life.99 As mentioned earlier, he even suggested once that he would like to settle there permanently with his wife.100 (This wish is reminiscent of his peculiar suggestion—made once, rather in passing, to Martha in their correspondence—that he might set up practice in Silesia or Moravia, thus, near Freiberg.101) Also in northern Italy, he much enjoyed his visit to Venice (mentioned in a letter to Martha), in which he went up the tower at St. Mark’s; visited a church and the Scuola San Rocco; and enjoyed a plethora of |