Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
HISTORY
tutor. The Grand Tour had more than supercial cultural mate Traveller": the intellectual, the social, the ethical
importance; as E. P. Thompson stated, ruling-class con- (by the opportunity of drawing moral instruction from all
trol in the 18th century was located primarily in a cultural the traveller saw), and the political.
hegemony, and only secondarily in an expression of economic or physical (military) power.[2]
In essence the Grand Tour was neither a scholars
pilgrimage nor a religious one,[3] though a pleasurable
stay in Venice and a cautious residence in Rome were essential. Catholic Grand Tourists followed the same routes
as Protestant Whigs. Since the 17th century a tour to such
places was also considered essential for budding young
artists to understand proper painting and sculpture techniques, though the trappings of the Grand Tour valets
and coachmen, perhaps a cook, certainly a "bear-leader"
or scholarly guide were beyond their reach. The advent
of popular guides, such as the Richardsons, did much
to popularize such trips, and following the artists themselves, the elite considered travel to such centres as necessary rites of passage. For gentlemen, some works of art
were essential to demonstrate the breadth and polish they
had received from their tour: in Rome antiquaries like
Thomas Jenkins provided access to private collections of
antiquities, among which enough proved to be for sale
that the English market raised the price of such things, as
well as for coins and medals, which formed more portable
souvenirs and a respected gentlemans guide to ancient
history. Pompeo Batoni made a career of painting English milordi posed with graceful ease among Roman
antiquities. Many continued on to Naples, where they
viewed Herculaneum and Pompeii, but few ventured far
into southern Italy or Malta, and fewer still to Greece, still Portrait of Douglas, 8th Duke of Hamilton, on his Grand Tour
with his physician Dr John Moore and the latters son John. A
under Turkish rule.
view of Geneva is in the distance where they stayed for two years.
Painted by Jean Preudhomme in 1774.
History
The idea of traveling for the sake of curiosity and learning was a developing idea in the 17th century. With
John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding
(1690), it was argued, and widely accepted, that knowledge comes entirely from the external senses, that what
one knows comes from the physical stimuli to which one
has been exposed. Thus, one could use up the environment, taking from it all it oers, requiring a change of
place. Travel, therefore, was necessary for one to develop
the mind and expand knowledge of the world. As a young
man at the outset of his account of a repeat Grand Tour,
the historian Edward Gibbon remarked that According
to the law of custom, and perhaps of reason, foreign travel
completes the education of an English gentleman. Consciously adapted for intellectual self-improvement, Gibbon was revisiting the Continent on a larger and more
liberal plan"; most Grand Tourists did not pause more
than briey in libraries. On the eve of the Romantic
era he played a signicant part in introducing, William
Beckford wrote a vivid account of his Grand Tour that
made Gibbons unadventurous Italian tour look distinctly
conventional.[5]
3
dious observer traveling through foreign lands reporting his ndings on human nature for those unfortunate
enough to have stayed home. Recounting ones observations to society at large to increase its welfare was considered an obligation; the Grand Tour ourished in this
mindset.[6]
The Grand Tour not only provided a liberal education,
but allowed those who could aord it the opportunity
to buy things otherwise unavailable at home, and it thus
increased participants prestige and standing. Grand
Tourists would return with crates of art, books, pictures,
sculpture, and items of culture, which would be displayed
in libraries, cabinets, gardens, and drawing rooms, as
well as the galleries built purposely for their display; The
Grand Tour became a symbol of wealth and freedom.
Artists who especially thrived on Grand Tourists included
Carlo Maratti, who was rst patronized by John Evelyn as
early as 1645,[7] Pompeo Batoni the portraitist, and the
vedutisti such as Canaletto, Pannini and Guardi. The less
well-o could return with an album of Piranesi etchings.
The perhaps in Gibbons opening remark cast an ironic
shadow over his resounding statement.[8] Critics of the
Grand Tour derided its lack of adventure. The tour of
Europe is a paltry thing, said one 18th century critic,
a tame, uniform, unvaried prospect.[9] The Grand
Tour was said to reinforce the old preconceptions and
prejudices about national characteristics, as Jean Gailhard's Compleat Gentleman (1678) observes: French
courteous. Spanish lordly. Italian amorous. German
clownish.[9] The deep suspicion with which Tour was
viewed at home in England, where it was feared that
the very experiences that completed the British gentleman might well undo him, were epitomised in the sarcastic nativist view of the ostentatiously well-travelled
maccaroni of the 1760s and 1770s.
2 Typical Itinerary
The most common itinerary of the Grand Tour[11] shifted
across generations in the cities it embraced, but the
British tourist usually began in Dover, England and
crossed the English Channel to Ostend,[lower-alpha 2] in the
Netherlands/Belgium, or to Calais or Le Havre in France.
From there the tourist, usually accompanied by a tutor
(known colloquially as a "bear-leader") and (if wealthy
enough) a troop of servants, could rent or acquire a coach
(which could be resold in any city or disassembled and
packed across the Alps, as in Giacomo Casanova's travels, who resold it on completion), or opt to make the trip
by boat as far as the Alps, either travelling up the Seine
to Paris, or up the Rhine to Basel.
4
diplomacy.
PUBLISHED ACCOUNTS
3 Published accounts
5
20 tour to Europe and the Near East have been published 7 References
on the web.[23][24] The letters written by sisters Mary and
Ida Saxton of Canton, Ohio in 1869 while on a six-month
7.1 Notes
tour oer insight into the Grand Tour tradition from an
American perspective.[25]
[1] Gross, Matt (September 5, 2008). Lessons From the
On television
See also
Gap year
Hiking#History
Hippie trail
Landscape
Pilgrimage
Romanticism
Tourism
Walking tour
Footnotes
EXTERNAL LINKS
[21] Moore, A View of Society and Manners in Italy; with Anecdotes relating to some Eminent Characters London, 1781
Roma Britannica: Art Patronage and Cultural Exchange in Eighteenth-Century Rome, eds. D. Marshall, K. Wolfe and S. Russell, British School at
Rome, 2011, pp. 14770.
7.2
General references
8 External links
In Our Time: The Grand Tour: Jeremy Black, Edward Chaney and Chloe Chard
9.1
Text
9.2
Images
9.3
Content license