13. Love in the Time of Nerone

Alberto Angela takes us to Nero's Rome. The common thread is a famous novel: Quo Vadis? One of the most widely read novels of the 20th century, it was written by Polish novelist Henryk Sienkiewicz, who won the Nobel Prize in 1905. Through a filmed reconstruction of the novel, we follow the adventures of its protagonists: Lycia, a princess taken prisoner by the Romans, and Vinicius, a Roman aristocrat. Through the adventures of these two young people, we delve into the secrets of daily life in Nero's Rome, discovering the streets, places, ordinary people, and key figures of Imperial Rome. Who really were Nero, Poppaea, and Tigellinus? Who was responsible for the great fire that devastated Rome in 64 AD? The figure of Nero that history has handed down to us is that of a fickle and bloodthirsty tyrant, paranoid to the point of madness. But is that really the case? It's a bit of a behind-the-scenes look at history.