Cities and the Grand Tour

Abstract

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 Drawing on a wide range of unpublished material, including travel accounts written by women, Rosemary Sweet explores how travel literature helped to create and perpetuate the image of a city; what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.

The Inner Lives of Early Modern Travel

“…In this, as with so many others who travelled during this period, Clerk was clearly tailoring his reports to ease anxieties back home. 76 Yet, Clerk III's curiosity, like that of his father decades earlier, pushed at these boundaries. In February 1696, Clerk entreated his father to permit him to travel that summer, with Italy as the ideal destination.…”

“…While actions in contravention of parental will were by no means unusual among 'Grand Tourists', especially in the later eighteenth century, the collection as a whole suggests not only a wilful discarding of confessional façades, but a near-revelling in the newfound mixture of cosmopolitan chaos and opportunity. 92 Much of this correspondence passed through the hands of the tailor Charles Browne, a fellow Scot whose home was variously located by contemporary travellerswho typically referred to him as a 'sartore inglese'near the Strada di Condotti in Rome. Browne proved to be not only a welcoming host for Clerk, but also a ready source for Italian fashion: one bill from 8 July 1698, incorporating clothing of fine calico and silver buttons, reached nearly £30, while letters after his travels from Browne still provided connections for gun locks, 'stamps of the fountains', and fine gloves to the tune of eighteen Roman crowns.…”

Gossip and Sexual Transgression in ‘English Society’ in 1790s’ Naples

“…In her book on Italian cities and the Grand Tour, Rosemary Sweet argues that certain 'narratives […] were constructed around specific cities'. 10 Over the course of the eighteenth century Naples developed a reputation for hedonism and 'came to represent the antithesis of what many travellers believed to be the defining attributes of their own society'. 11 It did not have the same level of 'gambling and organised prostitution' as Venice; however, in the eyes of the English, Naples was a city that endangered its visitors' virtue and sexual morality.…”

“…10 Over the course of the eighteenth century Naples developed a reputation for hedonism and 'came to represent the antithesis of what many travellers believed to be the defining attributes of their own society'. 11 It did not have the same level of 'gambling and organised prostitution' as Venice; however, in the eyes of the English, Naples was a city that endangered its visitors' virtue and sexual morality. This image was the result of a combination of factors, including the beauty and abundant fertility of the bay presided over by Mount Vesuviuswhose own unpredictability embodied Naples's reputation for riskand the early eighteenth-century rediscoveries of Pompeii and Herculaneum, which put Naples on the map as the ancient depraved playground of the wealthy Romans; and by the end of the period British society in Naples revolved around the disreputable household of the British ambassador, Sir William Hamilton.…”

Smuggling Silks into Eighteenth-Century Britain: Geography, Perpetrators, and Consumers

“…Roger Robertson felt he had to buy a second suit later on in his tour, even though he had purchased a new set of clothes in Paris. 114 In Italy, well-connected tourists found that they had access to high society in Turin or Florence, another inducement to dress up. Edward Thomas was invited to dine with the British ambassador in Turin, and therefore felt the pressure to buy more expensive clothing.…”