This chapter brings together literary responses to the ruins of Rome. Over the centuries after Petrarch, the ruins had acquired historical, cultural and aesthetic validation, all the outcome of the development of a sentiment favourable to ruination; in short, ruin-mindedness. For an emotional validation we must turn to writers, who put into plain words how they felt about the ruins. The feelings are surprisingly various: sometimes elation, sometimes moral disgust. Whatever the reaction, it is usually founded, as was Petrarch’s, on the fact that the ruins of Rome have a historical and cultural context, thanks to the survival of Latin literature. The physical remains of the ancient city are given meaning by the Roman literary heritage, and it is that above all which enables writers to record a varied range of nuanced responses to them that are not likely to be evoked by a ruin without a history. Reactions to the ruins are affected by shifts in sensibility, especially the influence of romanticism, which insisted upon recording impressions of the ruins in moonlight. The ruins of Rome are signs to be interpreted in endless ways. This cannot be said of any other ruins anywhere.