Cities and the Grand Tour
The British in Italy, c.1690–1820

A fascinating study of how British travellers experienced, described and represented the cities they visited on the Grand Tour.

Rosemary Sweet (Author)

9781107020504, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 4 October 2012

342 pages, 16 b/w illus.
23.1 x 15.2 x 2.5 cm, 0.67 kg

'However true Jane Austen's observation that 'we do not look in great cities for our best morality', Rosemary Sweet's engaging analysis demonstrates that travelers discovered great lessons of history in urban centers. Exploring Italian cities through the experiences of Grand Tourists, Sweet exposes new narratives of classical republics, medieval Gothicism, and Renaissance reclamation that gave urban history its early cultural capital.' Brian Dolan, University of California, San Francisco

How did eighteenth-century travellers experience, describe and represent the urban environments they encountered as they made the Grand Tour? This fascinating book focuses on the changing responses of the British to the cities of Florence, Rome, Naples and Venice, during a period of unprecedented urbanisation at home. Drawing on a wide range of unpublished material, including travel accounts written by women, Rosemary Sweet explores how travel literature helped to create and perpetuate the image of a city; what the different meanings and imaginative associations attached to these cities were; and how the contrasting descriptions of each of these cities reflected the travellers' own attitudes to urbanism. More broadly, the book explores the construction and performance of personal, gender and national identities, and the shift in cultural values away from neo-classicism towards medievalism and the gothic, which is central to our understanding of eighteenth-century culture and the transition to modernity.

Introduction
1. Experiencing the Grand Tour
2. Florence: a home from home
3. Rome ancient and modern
4. Naples: leisure, pleasure and a frisson of danger
5. Venice: a place of singularity and spectacle
6. Medievalism and the Grand Tour
Conclusion
Bibliography.

Subject Areas: Social & cultural history [HBTB], Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900 [HBLL], European history [HBJD], History [HB]