@Olivier5,
True, re not really being about that.
I just picked up, again, That Awful Mess on the Via Merulana. I had stopped midway into Italo Calvino's fairly long Introduction, know the book may drive me crazy or at least get my goat - talk about complexity, and that's just the intro. In italian, Calvino and Weaver say he uses many dialects but especially Roman. No, naturally, in english.
Hmm, the translator from Italian to English is/was a very good one, William Weaver. Author, apparently famous as a writer for many reasons, is Carlo Emilio Gadda. The book's title in italiano is Quet pasticciaccio brutto de Merulana.