The Grand Tour

Trip to Italy

Hackert, Landscape from Palazzo Caserta and Vesuvius, 1793

Since ever Italy's been the ideal destination for those willing to learn about art. For example, we know that Dürer was there to learn the new artistic techniques; Poussin lived most of his life in Rome; Velázquez travelled there two under his Kings demands; just like Rubens and many other. They were specific cases, but always with an professional or diplomatic interest. But since the XVIII c. Englishes mostly, but also Germans and Frenches started to head massively to the peninsula (around 40000 per year). Many of them were highlightable figures like Goethe, Reynolds, Turner, the architects R. Adam and Íñigo Jones, the poet Wordsworth, Stendhal, Dickens, Byron, Ruskin, Berkeley, Sargent…

For a long time, England was isolated from the continental artistic development: the Court's painters were foreigners. Plus, they had the schism with the Catholic Church by Henry VII and the war against Spain (who dominated the Southern Italy), which meant that anybody going there would need a special authorisation, return on a definite date (or deal with property confiscation) or else, be considered a spy. When England gets to be a world power, these obstacles didn't matter much anymore.

Dumesnil, the Younger,
Card Players in a Drawing Room
(Image: Metropolitam Museum
of Art)

Travelling to Italy also had an educational aim, since it was considered part of one's formation. It is what could make you either be “virtuoso” or have good taste. There was no other way to admire the Roman ruins, the big paintings and sculptures, apart from stamps and old travel books. (By the way: the first Italian touristic guide was written by Richard Lassels in 1640, and there would be hundreds like this one few years later.)

It lasted between 2 and 4 years. Some used this time to study in such important universities like Padua, Bologna, Sorbonne, Leipzig and Heidelberg. Who were the ones travelling? Obviously, those part of the highest class of society; mostly men, even though some women did too. They would always take all their servants with them: cooks, barbers, guides, fencing or dance masters, washerwomen, etc. They had a huge luggage: they would even take their own tea in a silver teapot, blankets, carpets, double sole shoes for the cold marble floors, oat for breakfast, pocket sized maps, compasses, dictionaries, watercolors and paintbrushes, medicines, tinder, mustard, lavender oil (against fleas and bedbugs they would have to deal with in inn's beds), guns to defend themselves from thieves, sheets, vinegar to disinfect the bathtubs' water, gifts for their hosts...

The youngest ones would go with a tutor, some being John Locke, Adam Smith or Thomas Hobbes. On the other side, some of these young travellers would even complain to their parents for their tutor not doing their job well, guiding them badly, and asking them to be permitted to return home. Of course, it also happened the other way around: tutors complaining about their pupils using their freedom and distance from the family to go on a binge instead of studying languages, measure ruins and painting landscapes.

Keate, Crossing the Mont Cenis, 1755
(British Museum)

They had around 120000 pounds per year, but they wouldn't travel with the money, fearing pirates and thieves. They would contact with local banks before travelling, but commissions were huge and the transference would take around 6 weeks. That's when they would ask the English consul for help (the famous Joseph Smith in Venice) or ask some countryman for a loan.

Turner, The Devil's Bridge
in St. Gotthard, 1804

They parted from Dover, and crossed the English Channel by boat, until arriving Genoa avoiding the Alps. Other would go to Calais and start a long land journey, with a compulsary stay in Paris. Some would use their own carriage, other would hire it or buy it in France. These had to cross the Alps through the Gotthard Pass, of Mont Cenis or Simplon Pass. This would be done on mules or horses but majorly carried in stretchers by 2 servants (and 8 other waiting for their turn).

Russel, English Travellers in Rome, 1750

Milan was the first stop, where the Leonardo's, Titian's and Carracci's paintings and where to go to the Opera. The most desired destination was Venice, where they would look for Titian, Tintoretto and Veronese. And of course, enjoying the carnival and a ride on gondola. Afterwards, they would go to Padua and discover the frescoes by Giotto. Then, Florence, to study the works kept in the Uffizi Gallery. Then Pisa, Bologna and Siena followed... Enthusiastically they would arrive at the Eternal City: they would study the ruins, visit the Vatican's Galleries to admire Rafael, Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel, the Vatican Library, the Colliseum. Rome was full of Englishmen: there would even be cafés and clubs for them, where they could play billiards and card games. Piazza Spagna was a real English ghetto.

Some would still travel to Sicilia and Napoli, where they would contemplate the liquefaction of Saint Genaro's blood, visit the Vesuvius, and the recently then discovered Pompei and Herculaneum.

Canaletto, Pantheon in
Rome, 1742 (Windsor,
Royal Collection)

They would return through Germany, Switzerland or the Netherlands. For political reasons, they would never go to Spain, Greece or Turkey. They would discover these countries along with romanticism in the XIX c.

Luggage would have doubled due to having bought books, manuscripts, reproductions of statues, engravings, gloves, silk, French porcelain, soaps, laces, melon and 'zucchini' seeds... But the most valuable were those paintings by Pannini, Canaletto, Guardi, Longhi, Bellotto, Piranesi.

Grand Tour ends with Napoleon's invasions in 1796. When the Channel was reopened, there would be many new travellers thirsty for art and culture.

It would be really influential on art in general, what is called Neoclassicism: it would all be invaded by Romans, togas and columns. English rooms would present some venetian vedute.

You probably don't know this: our word 'tourist' (and all it means) was precisely born due to the Grand Tour phenomena. We were just 'travellers' before.

Rowlandson, Two Men sleeping on the sofa, 1785
(Image: Royal Collection of Your Highness, the Queen
of England)

Sources: Chaney.E. The evolution of the Grand Tour. London, Frank Cass, 1998

Goethe, J.W. Italienische Reise. Frankfurt a.M., Insel V., 2013

 Hibbert, Ch., The Grand Tour . London, Thames Methuen, 1987

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