Katharine Read, British Gentlemen in Rome, ca 1750
New Haven, CT, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, B1981.25.272
See: https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:767
Who started it? Some say John Locke, with his notion that the infant mind was a blank tablet, awaiting correct instruction and learning. Whatever the origin, the notion of the Grand Tour as a means of completing the educational development of wealthy north Europeans established itself in the late 17th century and remained in force for at least the next two centuries.
The northern tourists were mostly aristocrats – at first at least. They came from those areas which were now in the ascendant in political and economic terms, but less well-endowed with the treasures of classical civilization and the Italian Renaissance: basically, the British, the Dutch, the Scandinavians, and the Germans.
Throughout the long eighteenth century, it was customary to send young Milords away for their edification and improvement. Itineraries varied: France, the Rhineland, and Switzerland were considered important (wars allowing), but Italy was always the goal.
What happened then was partly the whim of the tourist, partly the insistence of the “bear-leader” (the reliable retainer employed by the tourist’s father). Venice and Padua, Milan and Turin, all had their merits, but the real “meat” lay in Florence and Rome. These were the twin peaks of the renaissance and the classical worlds.
The duration of the tour could vary from a few months to several years, and both the tourist and his family fortunes would be affected forever, as both ideas and classical artefacts made a long – and often expensive – journey to northern stately homes.
Let’s journey with them. We have good guides, and, if the Alpine passes prove too overwhelming, blindfolds can be provided to spare you the horror of the view…
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