The power of the passion in Rome IN the midsummer of 1996 I found myself on the rooftop of the Italian chamber of deputies, at Palazzo Montecitorio, gazing over a crust-coloured skyline of domes and cupolas as a mass of storm clouds gathered overhead. From this perch atop one of the core institutions of the Italian state I grasped a quality that had eluded me on earlier visits. The city's inheritance of art and architecture, with which it is ostentatiously endowed, is the outward expression of something more fundamental still: Rome is first and foremost a city of power.