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The Spanish Steps ( Italian : Scalinata di Trinità dei Monti ) in Rome , Italy , climb a steep slope between Piazza di Spagna at the base and Piazza Trinità dei Monti, dominated by the Trinità dei Monti church, at the top.

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84-731: The monumental stairway of 135 steps is linked with the Trinità dei Monti church, under the patronage of the Bourbon kings of France, at the top of the steps and the Spanish Embassy to the Holy See in the Palazzo Monaldeschi at the bottom of the steps. The stairway was designed by the architects Francesco de Sanctis and Alessandro Specchi . Generations of heated debate over how the steep, 29-metre (95 ft) slope to

168-454: A window on the wall to let in daylight . In many cases, indoor stairs are placed far inside the building structure, and it is often not easy to get access to a wall on the outside where it would be natural to have a regular window for letting daylight in. For this reason, it is not unusual to find a skylight or roof windows above a stairwell. A research article suggests that perceived safety increases when using downwards lighting towards

252-417: A Nightingale ", May 1819 " Ode on a Grecian Urn " and " Ode on Melancholy " were inspired by sonnet forms and probably written after "Ode to a Nightingale". Keats's new and progressive publishers Taylor and Hessey issued Endymion , which Keats dedicated to Thomas Chatterton , a work that he termed "a trial of my Powers of Imagination". It was damned by the critics, giving rise to Byron's quip that Keats

336-453: A bottle of opium when they were setting off on their voyage. What Severn didn't realise was that Keats saw it as a possible resource if he wanted to commit suicide. He tried to get the bottle from Severn on the voyage but Severn wouldn't let him have it. Then in Rome he tried again.... Severn was in such a quandary he didn't know what to do, so in the end he went to the doctor, who took it away. As

420-545: A difficult period for the poet, marked the beginning of his annus mirabilis in which he wrote his most mature work. He had been inspired by a series of recent lectures by Hazlitt on English poets and poetic identity and had also met Wordsworth . Keats may have seemed to his friends to be living on comfortable means, but in reality he was borrowing regularly from Abbey and his friends. He composed five of his six great odes at Wentworth Place in April and May and, although it

504-491: A drowsy numbness pains  My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains  One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk: 'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,  But being too happy in thine happiness, –  That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,  In some melodious plot  Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,  Singest of summer in full-throated ease. First stanza of " Ode to

588-571: A formal engagement as he still had too little to offer, with no prospects and financial stricture. Keats endured great conflict knowing his expectations as a struggling poet in increasingly hard straits would preclude marriage to Brawne. Their love remained unconsummated; jealousy for his 'star' began to gnaw at him. Darkness, disease and depression surrounded him, reflected in poems such as "The Eve of St. Agnes" and "La Belle Dame sans Merci" where love and death both stalk. "I have two luxuries to brood over in my walks;" he wrote to her, "your loveliness, and

672-599: A great deal on his medical training, and despite his state of financial hardship and indebtedness, made large loans to friends such as the painter Benjamin Haydon . Keats would go on to lend £700 to his brother George. By lending so much, Keats could no longer cover the interest of his own debts. Having left his training at the hospital, suffering from a succession of colds, and unhappy with living in damp rooms in London, Keats moved with his brothers into rooms at 1 Well Walk in

756-580: A house next to the Steps. The Steps were featured prominently in the film version of The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), starring Matt Damon in the title role. The Spanish Steps are mentioned (as the Spanish Stairs) in the first verse of the song When I Paint My Masterpiece (1971). In a film for German titled Martha (1974), directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder , the father of the title character (played by Margit Carstensen ) dies while climbing

840-461: A liberal outlook and a progressive curriculum more modern than the larger, more prestigious schools. In the family atmosphere at Clarke's, Keats developed an interest in classics and history, which would stay with him throughout his short life. The headmaster's son, Charles Cowden Clarke, also became an important mentor and friend, introducing Keats to Renaissance literature, including Tasso , Spenser , and Chapman's translations . The young Keats

924-497: A lifelong career in medicine, assuring financial security, and it seems that, at this point, Keats had a genuine desire to become a doctor. He lodged near the hospital, at 28 St Thomas's Street in Southwark, with other medical students, including Henry Stephens who gained fame as an inventor and ink magnate. Keats's training took up increasing amounts of his writing time and he became increasingly ambivalent about it. He felt he

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1008-512: A medical student at Guy's Hospital , now part of King's College London , and began studying there. Within a month, he was accepted as a dresser at the hospital assisting surgeons during operations, the equivalent of a junior house surgeon today. It was a significant promotion, that marked a distinct aptitude for medicine; and it brought greater responsibility and a heavier workload. Keats's long and expensive medical training with Hammond and at Guy's Hospital led his family to assume he would pursue

1092-479: A month for the news of his death to reach London, after which Brawne stayed in mourning for six years. In 1833, more than 12 years after his death, she married and went on to have three children; she outlived Keats by more than 40 years. During 1820 Keats displayed increasingly serious symptoms of tuberculosis , suffering two lung haemorrhages in the first few days of February. On first coughing up blood, on 3 February 1820, he said to Charles Armitage Brown, "I know

1176-474: A museum dedicated to his memory, full of memorabilia of the English Romantic generation. On the same right side stands the 15th-century former cardinal Lorenzo Cybo de Mari 's palace, now Ferrari di Valbona, a building altered in 1936 to designs by Marcello Piacentini , the main city planner during Fascism , with modern terraces perfectly in harmony with the surrounding baroque context. At the top,

1260-449: A natural theatrical bent. During November 1818 she developed an intimacy with Keats, but it was shadowed by the illness of Tom Keats, whom John was nursing through this period. On 3 April 1819, Brawne and her widowed mother moved into the other half of Dilke's Wentworth Place, and Keats and Brawne were able to see each other every day. Keats began to lend Brawne books, such as Dante 's Inferno , and they would read together. He gave her

1344-399: A new book of poems. They were unimpressed with the collection, finding the presented versions of "Lamia" confusing, and describing "St Agnes" as having a "sense of pettish disgust" and "a 'Don Juan' style of mingling up sentiment and sneering" concluding it was "a poem unfit for ladies". The final volume Keats lived to see published, Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems ,

1428-459: A personal interest in the project and entrusted it to his agent in Rome—whose plan included an equestrian monument of Louis XIV of France —an ambitious intrusion that created a furore in papal Rome. Mazarin died in 1661 and the pope in 1667, while Gueffier's will was successfully contested by a nephew who claimed half, so the project lay dormant until Pope Clement XI Albani renewed interest in it in

1512-561: A plum-tree, where he sat for two or three hours. When he came into the house, I perceived he had some scraps of paper in his hand, and these he was quietly thrusting behind the books. On inquiry, I found those scraps, four or five in number, contained his poetic feelings on the song of our nightingale." Dilke, co-owner of the house, strenuously denied the story, printed in Richard Monckton Milnes ' 1848 biography of Keats, dismissing it as 'pure delusion'. My heart aches, and

1596-589: A posthumous existence". On arrival in Italy, he moved into a villa on the Spanish Steps in Rome, today the Keats–Shelley Memorial House museum. Despite care from Severn and Dr. James Clark , his health rapidly deteriorated. The medical attention Keats received may have hastened his death. In November 1820, Clark declared that the source of his illness was "mental exertion" and that the source

1680-413: A result Keats went through dreadful agonies with nothing to ease the pain at all." Keats was angry with both Severn and Clark when they would not give him laudanum (opium). He repeatedly demanded, "How long is this posthumous existence of mine to go on?" The first months of 1821 marked a slow and steady decline into the final stage of tuberculosis. His autopsy showed his lung almost disintegrated. Keats

1764-440: A set of stairs and a stairwell is referred to as a staircase or stairway . In buildings with several housing units, a stairway can be a necessary common area for getting to and from apartments . Staircases provide vertical access to connected floors in a multi-story building, and are a functional part of it. Stairwells are often used to place several stairs one above the other to save vertical space. The entrance to elevators

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1848-622: A sexual initiation for Keats according to Bate and Robert Gittings . Jones inspired and was a steward of Keats's writing. The themes of "The Eve of St. Agnes" and "The Eve of St Mark" may well have been suggested by her, the lyric Hush, Hush! ["o sweet Isabel"] was about her, and that the first version of " Bright Star " may have originally been for her. In 1821, Jones was one of the first in England to be notified of Keats's death. Letters and drafts of poems suggest that Keats first met Frances (Fanny) Brawne between September and November 1818. It

1932-529: A single infectious origin until 1820. There was considerable stigma attached to it, as it was often tied with weakness, repressed sexual passion or masturbation. Keats "refuses to give it a name" in his letters. Tom Keats died on 1 December 1818. John Keats moved to the newly built Wentworth Place, owned by his friend Charles Armitage Brown. It was on the edge of Hampstead Heath , ten minutes' walk south of his old home in Well Walk. The winter of 1818–19, though

2016-571: A starved apothecary than a starved poet; so back to the shop Mr John, back to plasters, pills, and ointment boxes." It was Lockhart at Blackwoods who coined the defamatory term "the Cockney School " for Hunt and his circle, which included both Hazlitt and Keats. The dismissal was as much political as literary, aimed at upstart young writers deemed uncouth for their lack of education, non-formal rhyming and "low diction". They had not attended Eton , Harrow or Oxbridge and they were not from

2100-492: A successful raid. In the film To Rome with Love (2012), Hayley ( Alison Pill ) and Michelangelo Santoli ( Flavio Parenti ) met on the Spanish Steps. The Spanish Steps were the setting of a 'Roadblock' task during The Amazing Race 24 (2014) in which contestants had to count the steps. In the 2000 film “It Had To Be You”, it is the dream of the female lead, a school teacher who has never been out of NYC, to go to

2184-466: Is believed to be 8000 years old, and are one of the oldest buildings in architectural history. The oldest example of spiral stairs dates back to the 400s BC . Medieval architecture saw experimentation with many different shapes, and the Renaissance even more so with varied designs. Good lighting is important in a staircase so users see where they are going and to prevent falls. There is often

2268-408: Is debated in which order they were written, " Ode to Psyche " opened the published series. According to Brown, " Ode to a Nightingale " was composed under a plum tree in the garden. Brown wrote, "In the spring of 1819 a nightingale had built her nest near my house. Keats felt a tranquil and continual joy in her song; and one morning he took his chair from the breakfast-table to the grass-plot under

2352-518: Is described as beautiful, talented and widely read, not of the top flight of society yet financially secure, an enigmatic figure who would become a part of Keats's circle. Throughout their friendship Keats never hesitated to own his sexual attraction to her, although they seemed to enjoy circling each other rather than offering commitment. He writes that he "frequented her rooms" in the winter of 1818–19, and in his letters to George says that he "warmed with her" and "kissed her". The trysts may have been

2436-493: Is likely that the 18-year-old Brawne visited the Dilke family at Wentworth Place before she lived there. She was born in the hamlet of West End, now in the district of West Hampstead , on 9 August 1800. Like Keats's grandfather, her grandfather kept a London inn, and both lost several family members to tuberculosis. She shared her first name with both Keats's sister and mother, and had a talent for dress-making and languages as well as

2520-534: Is no evidence to support this. The Globe pub now occupies the site, a few yards from modern Moorgate station . Keats was baptised at St Botolph-without-Bishopsgate , and sent to a local dame school as a child. His parents wished to send their sons to Eton or Harrow , but the family decided they could not afford the fees. In the summer of 1803, John was sent to board at John Clarke's school in Enfield , close to his grandparents' house. The small school had

2604-513: Is often a lot of area and volume that is not otherwise used. There are several examples of creative uses, such as wardrobes , home offices , playroom , or general storage such as drawers, cupboards or shelves for storage. John Keats John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English poet of the second generation of Romantic poets , along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley . His poems had been in publication for less than four years when he died of tuberculosis at

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2688-456: Is often located in the stairwell. Sometimes the stairwell goes around the lift shaft , other times it is placed next to it. An exterior stairway is a stair in a separate structure attached to the rest of the building body, and can either be enclosed or exposed to the elements. Such temporary exposed stairways are sometimes used in conjunction with scaffolding on construction sites, or permanently as an emergency exit . The concept of stairs

2772-643: The Belvedere Courtyard in the 1600s by Donato Bramante , while shaped and angled steps were introduced by Michelangelo in the vestibule to the Laurentian Library . The Bourbon fleur-de-lys and Innocent XIII's eagle and crown are carefully balanced in the sculptural details. Mid-18th century writers Joseph de Lalande and Charles de Brosses noted that the steps were already in poor condition. They have been restored several times since, including from May to December 1995. Sponsored by

2856-584: The Royal College of Surgeons . In October 1816 Clarke introduced Keats to the influential Leigh Hunt, a close friend of Byron and Shelley. Five months later came the publication of Poems , the first volume of Keats's verse, which included "I stood tiptoe" and "Sleep and Poetry", both strongly influenced by Hunt. The book was a critical failure, arousing little interest, although Reynolds reviewed it favourably in The Champion . Clarke commented that

2940-562: The series of odes . Typically of the Romantics , he accentuated extreme emotion through natural imagery. Today his poems and letters remain among the most popular and analysed in English literature – in particular " Ode to a Nightingale ", " Ode on a Grecian Urn ", " Sleep and Poetry " and the sonnet " On First Looking into Chapman's Homer ". Jorge Luis Borges named his first time reading Keats an experience he felt all his life. John Keats

3024-454: The Italian luxury brand Bulgari (which has its Italian flagship store in the nearby Via dei Condotti) a new renovation commenced on 8 October 2015, with the steps being reopened to the public on 21 September 2016. The restoration of the almost 32,300 square feet (3,000 m) of travertine stone, as well as brick, marble and plaster employed more than 80 people and cost €1.5 million. Over

3108-594: The Rainbow (2019), the Steps were featured prominently as the site where the main idol group Aqours performed the main musical number of the film, "Hop? Stop? Nonstop!," during their overseas trip from Numazu , Japan to Rome. The Spanish Steps feature in car action scene in Fast X (2023). The Spanish Steps feature in a car chase in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One . The end credits assure

3192-461: The Spanish Steps have included a small cut-flower market. The steps are not a place for eating lunch, being forbidden by Roman urban regulations, but they are usually crowded with people. In May 2022, a Saudi national drove a rented Maserati through the steps, descending the first flight of steps before stopping. Fractures were subsequently found on the 16th and 29th steps of the right-hand flight rising up from Piazza di Spagna. The man, who abandoned

3276-427: The Spanish Steps. In an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond (Season 5, Episode 1: Italy) which aired on October 2, 2000, Ray, Debra, Frank, and Marie climb the Spanish Steps during a family vacation in Rome. An episode of the anime series Gunslinger Girl , entitled "Gelato (Ice Cream)," which first aired in 2003, features the protagonist by the Spanish Steps having her "reward" of ice cream after having completed

3360-412: The Spanish Steps. The film Roman Holiday (1953), starring Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck featured the Spanish Steps. In the 1963 Italian giallo film The Girl Who Knew Too Much , Nora witnesses a murder on the Spanish Steps. The apartment that was the setting for The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (1961) is halfway up on the right. Bernardo Bertolucci 's Besieged (1998) is also set in

3444-503: The Spanish Steps. She and her love interest imagine they are there while in a fountain in Central Park. The Spanish Steps are featured in a scene in the film The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015), in which Illya ( Armie Hammer ), posing as a Russian architect, attempts to explain to Gaby ( Alicia Vikander ) that the Steps were actually made by a Russian architect. Midway through the animated film Love Live! The School Idol Movie: Over

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3528-515: The Spanish author Valentín de Llanos Gutiérrez  [ es ] . Another son was lost in infancy. His father first worked as an ostler at the stables attached to the Swan and Hoop Inn owned by his father-in-law, John Jennings, an establishment he later managed, and where the growing family lived for some years. Keats believed he was born at the inn, a birthplace of humble origins, but there

3612-567: The age of 25. They were indifferently received in his lifetime, but his fame grew rapidly after his death. By the end of the century, he was placed in the canon of English literature , strongly influencing many writers of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood ; the Encyclopædia Britannica of 1888 called one ode "one of the final masterpieces". Keats had a style "heavily loaded with sensualities", notably in

3696-604: The book "might have emerged in Timbuctoo." Keats's publishers, Charles and James Ollier , felt ashamed of it. Keats immediately changed publishers to Taylor and Hessey in Fleet Street . Unlike the Olliers, Keats's new publishers were enthusiastic about his work. Within a month of the publication of Poems they were planning a new Keats volume and had paid him an advance. Hessey became a steady friend to Keats and made

3780-525: The car and fled the scene, was later apprehended at Milan Malpensa Airport after being identified through surveillance cameras and was charged with inflicting aggravated damage to cultural heritage and monuments. In June 2022, two American tourists launched a scooter three times down the steps, damaging the third-to-last travertine step of the second ramp and dislodging a 10-centimeter piece of marble that cost €25,000 ($ 27,000) in repairs. The couple were apprehended by police, fined €400 each and were banned from

3864-582: The church on a shoulder of the Pincio should be urbanized preceded the final execution. Archival drawings from the 1580s show that Pope Gregory XIII was interested in constructing a stair to the recently completed façade of the French church. French diplomat to the Holy See Étienne Gueffier died in 1660, leaving part of his fortune for the construction of the stairs. The Roman-educated Cardinal Mazarin took

3948-446: The colour of that blood! It is arterial blood. I cannot be deceived in that colour. That drop of blood is my death warrant. I must die." He lost large amounts of blood and was bled further by the attending physician. Hunt nursed him in London for much of the following summer. At the suggestion of his doctors, he agreed to move to Italy with his friend Joseph Severn . On 13 September, they left for Gravesend and four days later boarded

4032-432: The company's rooms available for young writers to meet. Their publishing lists came to include Coleridge , Hazlitt , Clare , Hogg , Carlyle and Charles Lamb . Through Taylor and Hessey, Keats met their Eton -educated lawyer, Richard Woodhouse, who advised them on literary as well as legal matters and was deeply impressed by Poems . Although he noted that Keats could be "wayward, trembling, easily daunted," Woodhouse

4116-516: The decoration. The elder Bernini had been the pope's architect for the Acqua Vergine , since 1623. According to a legend, Pope Urban VIII had the fountain installed after he had been impressed by a boat brought here by a flood of the Tiber . In the piazza, at the corner on the right as one begins to climb the steps, is the house where English poet John Keats lived and died in 1821; it is now

4200-492: The early 18th century. A competition held in 1717 was won by Francesco de Sanctis , though Alessandro Specchi was long thought to have produced the winning entry. Little is known of the architect, who was favored by the French in the design process. His drawing was engraved by Girolamo Rossi in 1726, with a long dedication to Louis XV. The solution is a gigantic inflation of some conventions of terraced garden stairs . The first such divided and symmetrical stairs were devised for

4284-411: The end of the year he informed his guardian that he resolved to be a poet, not a surgeon. Although he continued his work and training at Guy's, Keats devoted more and more time to the study of literature, experimenting with verse forms, particularly the sonnet. In May 1816, Leigh Hunt agreed to publish the sonnet "O Solitude" in his magazine The Examiner , a leading liberal magazine of the day. This

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4368-404: The four children went to live with a grandmother, Alice Jennings, in the village of Edmonton . In March 1810, when Keats was 14, his mother died of tuberculosis , leaving the children in their grandmother's custody. She appointed two guardians, Richard Abbey and John Sandell, for them. That autumn, Keats left Clarke's school to be an apprentice with Thomas Hammond, a surgeon and apothecary who

4452-551: The holiness of the Heart's affections and the truth of the imagination. What imagination seizes as Beauty must be truth." This passage would eventually be transmuted into the concluding lines of " Ode on a Grecian Urn ": " 'Beauty is truth, truth beauty' – that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know". In early December 1816, under the heady influence of his artistic friends, Keats told Abbey he had decided to give up medicine in favour of poetry, to Abbey's fury. Keats had spent

4536-655: The hope of soon seeing you ... I have been astonished that Men could die Martyrs for religion – I have shudder'd at it – I shudder no more – I could be martyr'd for my Religion – Love is my religion – I could die for that – I could die for you." Tuberculosis took hold and he was advised by his doctors to move to a warmer climate. In September 1820 Keats left for Rome knowing he would probably never see Brawne again. After leaving he felt unable to write to her or read her letters, although he did correspond with her mother. He died there five months later. None of Brawne's letters to Keats survive. It took

4620-431: The hour of my death". In one of his many hundreds of notes and letters, Keats wrote to Brawne on 13 October 1819: "My love has made me selfish. I cannot exist without you – I am forgetful of every thing but seeing you again – my Life seems to stop there – I see no further. You have absorb'd me. I have a sensation at the present moment as though I was dissolving – I should be exquisitely miserable without

4704-434: The love sonnet "Bright Star" (perhaps revised for her) as a declaration. It was a work in progress which he continued until the last months of his life, and the poem came to be associated with their relationship. "All his desires were concentrated on Fanny". From this point there is no further documented mention of Isabella Jones. Sometime before the end of June, he arrived at some sort of understanding with Brawne, far from

4788-583: The poet's expectations. Money was always a great concern and difficulty, as he struggled to stay out of debt and make his way in the world independently. On First Looking into Chapman's Homer Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold, And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; Round many western islands have I been Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. Oft of one wide expanse had I been told That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne; Yet did I never breathe its pure serene Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold: Then felt I like some watcher of

4872-610: The sailing brig Maria Crowther . On 1 October the ship landed at Lulworth Bay or Holworth Bay, where the two went ashore; back on board ship he made the final revisions of "Bright Star". The journey was a minor catastrophe: storms broke out, followed by a dead calm that slowed the ship's progress. When they finally docked in Naples, the ship was held in quarantine for ten days due to a suspected outbreak of cholera in Britain. Keats reached Rome on 14 November, by which time any hope of

4956-530: The skies When a new planet swims into his ken; Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes He star'd at the Pacific  – and all his men Look'd at each other with a wild surmise  – Silent, upon a peak in Darien. The sonnet " On First Looking into Chapman's Homer " October 1816 In October 1815, having finished his five-year apprenticeship with Hammond, Keats registered as

5040-428: The stairs, while upwards lighting resulted in a substantial decrease of perceived safety. In new stairways, some jurisdictions require handrails to be mounted on both sides. Often the stairs in a stairwell are an emergency exit in case of fire, and the stairwell should then be a separate fire compartment separated from the rest of the building via fire doors . For fire safety it can be advantageous that both

5124-465: The stairway ramp up the Pincio which is the Pincian Hill . The Villa Medici can be reached from the top of the steps. During Christmas time, a 19th-century criba manger is displayed on the first landing of the staircase. During springtime, just before the anniversary of the foundation of Rome on 21 April, part of the steps are covered by pots of azaleas , up until early May. In modern times,

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5208-532: The steps and up to €400 for dirtying or damaging the steps (including eating on them or pushing a pram up or down them). In the Piazza di Spagna at the base is the Early Baroque fountain called Fontana della Barcaccia ("Fountain of the longboat"), built in 1627–29 and often credited to Pietro Bernini , father of a more famous son, Gian Lorenzo Bernini , who is recently said to have collaborated on

5292-501: The upper classes. In 1819 Keats wrote " The Eve of St. Agnes ", " La Belle Dame sans Merci ", " Hyperion ", " Lamia " and a play, Otho the Great , critically damned and not performed until 1950. The poems "Fancy" and "Bards of passion and of mirth" were inspired by the garden of Wentworth Place. In September, very short of money and in despair considering taking up journalism or a post as a ship's surgeon, he approached his publishers with

5376-615: The vicinity of the site for two days. In April 2023, climate protestors from Ultima Generazione poured a charcoal-based black powder into the Fontana della Barcaccia, discoloring its water and leaving stains on its marble surface. The protesters were apprehended by authorities and detained. The steps are featured in several literary works. Notable examples include: The film Le Ragazze di Piazza di Spagna of 1952, directed by Luciano Emmer and starring Liliana Bonfatti , Lucia Bosè , Cosetta Greco , and Marcello Mastroianni , centers on

5460-641: The viewer that, for the car chase, a replica on a studio backlot was used. The film also premiered on the Spanish Steps on June 19, 2023. The Spanish Steps appear as part of the Rome Avanti course in Mario Kart Tour and subsequently in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe , being added to both games in 2023. On 16 January 2008, the Italian artist Graziano Cecchini covered the Spanish Steps with hundreds of thousands of multicolored plastic balls. He claimed it

5544-652: The village of Hampstead in April 1817. There John and George nursed their tubercular brother Tom. The house was close to Hunt and others of his circle in Hampstead, and to Coleridge , respected elder of the first wave of Romantic poets, then living in Highgate . On 11 April 1818, Keats reported that he and Coleridge had taken a long walk on Hampstead Heath . In a letter to his brother George, he wrote that they had talked about "a thousand things, ... nightingales, poetry, poetical sensation, metaphysics." Around this time he

5628-522: The walls, ceiling and the stairs themselves in a stairwell are made of non-combustible materials, and be illuminated with daylight during the day and artificial lighting at darkness. Storage of objects in shared stairwells is generally prohibited due to the fact that this is often an escape route. This applies to both flammable objects and other objects that may become an obstacle to the rescue work. Many housing cooperatives have general prohibitions against storage in common stairwells. Under stairs there

5712-543: The warmer climate he sought had disappeared. Keats wrote his last letter on 30 November 1820 to Charles Armitage Brown; "Tis the most difficult thing in the world to me to write a letter. My stomach continues so bad, that I feel it worse on opening any book – yet I am much better than I was in Quarantine. Then I am afraid to encounter the proing and conning of any thing interesting to me in England. I have an habitual feeling of my real life having past, and that I am leading

5796-425: The writer Charles Lamb; the conductor Vincent Novello ; and the poet John Hamilton Reynolds , who would become a close friend. Keats also met regularly with William Hazlitt , a powerful literary figure of the day. It was a turning point for Keats, establishing him in the public eye as a figure in what Hunt termed "a new school of poetry". At this time Keats wrote to his friend Bailey, "I am certain of nothing but

5880-540: The years, several city administrations have tried to dissuade visitors from getting too comfortable on the steps, banning loitering and eating, but the ordinances have not been enforced. However, in July 2019 the administration of Mayor Virginia Raggi, as part of an attempt to get ill-mannered tourists to behave themselves in Rome, introduced more stringent ordinances designed to "guarantee decorum, security and legality". These regulations allow for fines of €250 for sitting down on

5964-583: Was a neighbour and the doctor of the Jennings family. Keats lodged in the attic above the surgery, at 7 Church Street, until 1813. Cowden Clarke, who remained close to Keats, called this period "the most placid time in Keats' life." From 1814 Keats had two bequests, held in trust for him until his 21st birthday. £800 was willed by his grandfather John Jennings. Also Keats's mother left a legacy of £8000 to be equally divided among her living children. It seems he

6048-493: Was born in Moorgate , London, on 31 October 1795, to Thomas and Frances Keats (née Jennings). There is little evidence of his exact birthplace. Although Keats and his family seem to have marked his birthday on 29 October, baptism records give the date as the 31st. He was the eldest of four surviving children; his younger siblings were George (1797–1841), Thomas (1799–1818), and Frances Mary "Fanny" (1803–1889), who later married

6132-511: Was convinced of Keats's genius, a poet to support as he became one of England's greatest writers. Soon after they met, the two became close friends, and Woodhouse started to collect Keatsiana, documenting as much as he could about the poetry. This archive survives as one of the main sources of information on Keats's work. Andrew Motion represents him as Boswell to Keats's Johnson , ceaselessly promoting his work, fighting his corner and spurring his poetry to greater heights. In later years, Woodhouse

6216-523: Was described by his friend Edward Holmes as a volatile character, "always in extremes", given to indolence and fighting. At 13 he began focusing his energy on reading and study, winning his first academic prize in midsummer 1809. In April 1804, when Keats was eight, his father died from a skull fracture after falling from his horse while returning from a visit to Keats and his brother George at school. Thomas Keats died intestate . Frances remarried two months later, but left her new husband soon afterwards, and

6300-563: Was done to raise international awareness of the situation of the Karen people in Myanmar, and as a protest against the living conditions of artists in Italy. [REDACTED] Media related to Trinità dei Monti (Rome) - Scalinata at Wikimedia Commons Stairway A stairwell or stair room is a room in a building where a stair is located, and is used to connect walkways between floors so that one can move in height. Collectively,

6384-557: Was facing a stark choice. He had written his first extant poem, "An Imitation of Spenser", in 1814, when he was 19. Now, strongly drawn by ambition, inspired by fellow poets such as Leigh Hunt and Lord Byron , and beleaguered by family financial crises, he suffered periods of depression. His brother George wrote that John "feared that he should never be a poet, & if he was not he would destroy himself." In 1816, Keats received his apothecary's licence , which made him eligible to practise as an apothecary, physician and surgeon, but before

6468-629: Was introduced to Charles Wentworth Dilke and James Rice. In June 1818, Keats began a walking tour of Scotland, Ireland and the Lake District with Charles Armitage Brown . Keats's brother George and his wife Georgiana accompanied them to Lancaster and then continued to Liverpool , from where they migrated to America, living in Ohio and Louisville, Kentucky , until 1841, when George's investments failed. Like Keats's other brother, they both died penniless and racked by tuberculosis, for which there

6552-458: Was largely situated in his stomach. Clark eventually diagnosed consumption (tuberculosis) and placed Keats on a starvation diet of an anchovy and a piece of bread a day intended to reduce the blood flow to his stomach. He also bled the poet: a standard treatment of the day, but also likely a significant contributor to Keats's weakness. Severn's biographer Sue Brown writes: "They could have used opium in small doses, and Keats had asked Severn to buy

6636-513: Was no effective treatment until the next century. In July, while on the Isle of Mull , Keats caught a bad cold and "was too thin and fevered to proceed on the journey." After returning south in August, Keats continued to nurse Tom, so exposing himself to infection. Some have suggested this was when tuberculosis, his "family disease", took hold. " Consumption " was not identified as a disease with

6720-404: Was not told of the £800 and probably knew nothing of it as he never applied for it. Historically, blame has often been laid on Abbey as legal guardian, but he may also have been unaware of it. William Walton, solicitor for Keats's mother and grandmother, definitely knew and had a duty of care to relay the information to Keats. It seems he did not, though it would have made a critical difference to

6804-422: Was one of the few to accompany Keats to Gravesend , Kent , to embark on his final trip to Rome. Despite the bad reviews of Poems , Hunt published the essay "Three Young Poets" ( Shelley , Keats, and Reynolds ) and the sonnet " On First Looking into Chapman's Homer ", foreseeing great things to come. He introduced Keats to many prominent men in his circle, including the editor of The Times , Thomas Barnes ;

6888-525: Was published in July 1820. It received greater acclaim than had Endymion or Poems , finding favourable notices in both The Examiner and Edinburgh Review . It came to be recognised as one of the most important poetic works ever published. Wentworth Place now houses the Keats House museum. Keats befriended Isabella Jones in May 1817, while on holiday in the village of Bo Peep , near Hastings . She

6972-484: Was the first appearance of Keats's poetry in print; Charles Cowden Clarke called it his friend's red letter day, first proof that Keats' ambitions were valid. Among his poems of 1816 was To My Brothers . That summer, Keats went with Clarke to the seaside town of Margate to write. There he began "Calidore" and initiated an era of great letter writing. On returning to London, he took lodgings at 8 Dean Street, Southwark, and braced himself to study further for membership of

7056-525: Was ultimately "snuffed out by an article", suggesting that he never truly got over it. A particularly harsh review by John Wilson Croker appeared in the April 1818 edition of the Quarterly Review . John Gibson Lockhart writing in Blackwood's Magazine , described Endymion as "imperturbable drivelling idiocy". With biting sarcasm, Lockhart advised, "It is a better and a wiser thing to be

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