Federico Fellini on his first impressions of Rome

One of the things I found most striking was the monumental rudeness that I encountered everywhere. A gigantic rudeness and a gigantic vulgarity. This vulgarity is part of the character of Rome, that magnificent vulgarity to which the Latin authors have left testimony - Plautus, Martial, Juvenal. It is the vulgarity of Petronius' Satyricon. It is a kind of liberation, a victory over the fear of bad taste, over propriety. For anyone who observes the city with the aim of expressing it creatively, the vulgarity is an entertainment, an aspect of fascination that Rome inspires. But Rome seemed to me immediately a familiar, welcoming and friendly city - perhaps because my mother was a Roman...