(Note: I receive absolutely no remuneration or other special consideration from any of the hotels or restaurants I recommend.)
About
Daniel
Over 150 Visits to Rome Over the Past 38 Years
Raised in a small Quaker town in the largest hog-producing county in Ohio, I was first seized by Rome and its mesmerizing history at a very early age, long before I became a physician, and my love affair with the place has never wavered. Indeed, I have always been fascinated by Rome’s seismic transition from an ancient Hellenic civilization to a Medieval Christian one, a transformation of values and beliefs which affects us even today, 1600 years later. Since 1983, I have traveled to Rome over 150 times—probably more often than Rick Steves has!—gaining new insights on every trip.
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Over the decades, I have accumulated a significant library on ancient and Medieval Rome and have read extensively on the city and its history. Moreover, my perspective as a physician working on the frontlines of the HIV pandemic, both in New York City and for over eight years in Africa, gives me special appreciation of how Rome can put our own lives into perspective, giving new meaning—and solace—to our own suffering, all against the backdrop of unspeakable beauty and with the aid of great food and drink.
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This website is both a stand-alone project for people interested in Rome and an introduction to my upcoming book, Meditations on Rome: Six Tours for the Mindful Traveler, which will be a guidebook like no other. Folding in history, philosophy, religion, and self-examination, my website and book will take the reader deeper into the city and into themselves. When helpful in understanding the background and significance of a site, there are also incisive, colorful mini-biographies of people mentioned in the discussion. Meditations on Rome is intended for travelers whose first instinct on entering a church or museum is not to start taking photos, but to stop and ask questions of the beauty before them. What does this mean to me? What did this mean to them? What will it mean to those in the future?
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The perspective and insights I hope to share in my website and book are echoed in the two books I have already published: The Least of These My Brethren: A Doctor’s Story of Hope and Miracles on an Inner-City AIDS Ward (Crown/Harmony Books, 1997, Harvest paperback 1998), and One Life at a Time: An American Doctor’s Memoir of AIDS in Botswana (Skyhorse Publishing, Inc., 2018). The Washington Post described The Least of These as having “Tolstoyan power,” and the writer Thomas Moore declared that it was “a way to discover the human heart, basic values, and individual character.” Kirkus Reviews described One Life at a Time as “An honest, moving memoir giving voice to those without one,” and Anthony Appiah said, “it also brings a message of hope.” One Life at a Time was also listed in the New Yorker’s “Briefly Noted” column as “an affecting memoir,” adding that I “nimbly [avoid] tropes common to writing about Africa, and [my] continuous self-effacement inspires confidence in [my] account.” The same thoughtful and contemplative approach I used in my first two books will be found in Meditations on Rome.
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Meditations on Rome is my attempt to share with others the profoundly compelling visions and stirring insights about Rome which have captured—and continue to capture—my imagination over the nearly forty years I have known the city. I welcome your comments and insights as well…
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Daniel Baxter, M.D., New York City, December 2020