Grand Tour

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For other uses, see Grand Tour (disambiguation).
The interior of the Pantheon in the 18th century, painted by Giovanni Paolo Panini
The interior of the Pantheon in the 18th century, painted by Giovanni Paolo Panini

The Grand Tour was an upper-class European travel itinerary that flourished from about 1660 until the arrival of mass rail transit in the 1840s. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term was coined by Richard Lassels (c 1603-1668), an expatriate Roman Catholic priest who wrote The Voyage of Italy, which was published posthumously in Paris in 1670 and then in London.[1] Lassels' introduction classed the four departments in which travel furnished "an accomplished, consummate Traveller": intellectually, socially, ethically, by the opportunity of drawing moral instruction from all the traveller saw, and politically. The Grand Tour served as an educational rite of passage for males of the British nobility and wealthy gentry, whose address among their entourage made "Milord" a French and Italian byword for any British gentlemen. Similar trips were made by the wealthy of other Protestant Northern European nations; in general, the French looked to the salons of Paris and the court of Versailles instead, to provide a cultured polish to its gilded youth and reinforce standards of taste. The primary value of the Grand Tour lay in the exposure both to the cultural artifacts of antiquity and the Renaissance and to the aristocratic and fashionable society of the European continent. A grand tour could last from several months to several years. It was commonly undertaken in the company of a knowledgeable guide.

The far from superficial cultural importance of the Grand Tour can be underestimated by those who have not absorbed E.P. Thompson's often-quoted assertion that "ruling-class control in the eighteenth century was located primarily in a cultural hegemony, and only secondarily in an expression of economic or physical (military) power."[2]

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[edit] Published accounts

For the modern historian and the contemporary reading public, published accounts of personal experiences on the Grand Tour provide illuminating detail, and a freshness of first-hand experience. Of some published (and polished) tour accounts offered in their own lifetimes, Jeremy Black[3] detects the element of literary artifice in these and cautions that they should be approached as travel literature rather than unvarnished accounts; he instances Joseph Addison, John Andrews,[4] William Beckford, William Coxe,[5] Elizabeth Craven,[6] John Moore, tutor to successive dukes of Hamilton,[7] Samuel Jackson Pratt, Tobias Smollett, Philip Thicknesse,[8] and Arthur Young.

[edit] Travel itinerary

The most common itinerary of the Grand Tour[9] shifted from generation to generation in the cities it embraced but invariably began in Dover, England, and crossed the English Channel to Calais in France. From there the tourist, usually accompanied by a tutor (known colloquially as a "bear-leader) and if wealthy enough a league of servants, acquired a coach—which would be disassembled and packed across the Alps[10] then resold on completion—and other travel and transportation necessities, such as a French-speaking guide, and set off for Paris. In Paris the traveller might undertake lessons in French, dancing, fencing and riding. The appeal of Paris lay in the sophisticated language and manners of high French society, including courtly behavior and fashion. Ostensibly this served the purpose of preparing the young British nobleman for a leadership position at home, often government-related or diplomatic in nature.

Robert Spencer, 2nd Earl of Sunderland (1640-1702), painted in classical dress in Rome by Carlo Maratta
Robert Spencer, 2nd Earl of Sunderland (1640-1702), painted in classical dress in Rome by Carlo Maratta

From Paris he would typically go to Geneva, the Continental cradle of the Protestant Reformation or Lausanne and experience urban Switzerland for a while.[11] Then a difficult crossing over the Alps into Northern Italy (such as at St. Bernard Pass), which included dismantling the carriage and luggage, and if wealthy enough he might be carried over the hard terrain by servants. Once in Northern Italy the tourist would visit Turin, less often Milan, then might spend a few months in Florence, where there was a considerable Anglo-Italian society accessible to travelling Englishmen "of quality" and where the Tribuna of the Uffizi brought together in one space the monuments of High Renaissance paintings and Roman sculptures that would inspire picture galleries dressed with antiquities at home, with side trips to Pisa, then move on to Padua[12], Bologna, and Venice[13] to do the same. From Venice it was on, climactically, to Rome to study the classical ruins, with perhaps a visit to Naples for music, and after the mid-eighteenth century, to appreciate the recently discovered archaeological sites of Herculaneum and Pompeii and perhaps for the adventurous thrilling ascent of Mount Vesuvius. Later in the period the more adventurous, especially if provided with a yacht, might attempt the Greek ruins of Sicily or Greece itself. But Naples, or later Paestum a little further south, was the usual terminus; from here it was back north through the Alps to the German-speaking parts of Europe. The traveller might stop first in Innsbruck before visiting Berlin, Dresden, Vienna and Potsdam, with perhaps some study time at the universities in Munich or Heidelberg. Then it was on to Holland and Flanders, with more gallery-going and art appreciation, before returning across the Channel to England.

[edit] History

Thomas Coryat's travel book Coryat's Crudities (1611) was an early influence on the Grand Tour. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first recorded use of the term (perhaps its introduction to English) was by Richard Lassels in his book An Italian Voyage (1670). Some contemporary sociologists view the Grand Tour as the prototype for modern tourism.[citation needed]

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 offers, requiring a change of place. Travel, therefore, was an obligation for the person who wanted to further develop his or her mind and so expand his or her knowledge of the world: "According to the law of custom, and perhaps of reason, foreign travel completes the education of an English gentleman", the precocious historian, the young Edward Gibbon remarked at the outset of his account of a repeat Grand Tour, consciously adapted for intellectual self-improvement, "revisting the Continent on a larger and more liberal plan"; most Grand Tourists did not pause more than briefly in libraries. The typical 18th century sentiment was that of the studious observer traveling through foreign lands reporting his findings on human nature for those unfortunate to have stayed home. Traveling observation became a duty, an obligation to society at large to increase its welfare. The Grand Tour flourished in this mindset.[14]

The Grand Tourist, like Francis Basset, would become familiar with Antiquities, though this altar is the invention of the painter Pompeo Batoni, 1778.
The Grand Tourist, like Francis Basset, would become familiar with Antiquities, though this altar is the invention of the painter Pompeo Batoni, 1778.

The Grand Tour not only provided a liberal education but allowed those who could afford 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 purposively for their display; The Grand Tour became a symbol of wealth and freedom. Artists who especially thrived on Grand Tourists included Pompeo Batoni the portraitist, and the vedutisti such as Canaletto, Pannini and Guardi. The less well-off could return with an album of Piranesi etchings.

The "perhaps" in Gibbon's opening remark cast an ironic shadow over his resounding statement.[15] 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".[16] The Grand Tour was said to re-enforce the old preconceptions and prejudices about national characteristics, as Jean Gailhard's Compleat Gentleman (1678) observes: "French courteous. Spanish lordly. Italian amorous. German clownish."[16] 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 70s.

After the arrival of mass transit, around 1825, the Grand Tour custom continued, but it was of a qualitative difference -cheaper to undertake, safer, easier, open to anyone. During much of the 19th century, most educated young men of privilege undertook the Grand Tour. Germany and Switzerland came to be included in a more broadly defined circuit. Later, it became fashionable for young women as well; a trip to Italy, with a spinster aunt chaperon, was part of the upper-class woman's education, as in E.M. Forster's novel A Room with a View.

[edit] The Grand Tour on television

In 2005, British art historian Brian Sewell followed in the footsteps of the Grand Tourist for a 10 part television series 'Brian Sewell's Grand Tour'. Produced by UK's Channel Five, Sewell travelled across Italy by car stopping off in Rome, Florence, Vesuvius, Naples, Pompeii, Turin, Milan, Cremona, Siena, Bologna, Vicenza, Paestum, Urbino, Tivoli. His journey concluded in Venice at a masked ball.

In 1998, the BBC produced an art history series 'Sister Wendy's Grand Tour' presented by Carmelite nun Sister Wendy. Ostensibly an art history series, the journey takes her from Madrid to St. Petersburg with stop offs to see the great masterpieces.

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Anthony à Wood reported that the book was "esteemed the best and surest Guide or Tutor for young men of his Time".
  2. ^ Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class 1991:43
  3. ^ Black, "Fragments from the Grand Tour" The Huntington Library Quarterly 53.4 (Autumn 1990:337-341) p 338.
  4. ^ Andrews, A Comparative View of the French and English Nations in their Manners, Politics, and Literature, London, 1785.
  5. ^ Coxe, Sketches of the Natural, Political and Civil State of Switzerland London, 1779; Travels into Poland, Russia, Sweden and Denmark London, 1784; Travels in Switzerland London, 1789. Coxe's travels range far from the Grand Tour pattern.
  6. ^ Craven, A Journey through the Crimea to Constantinople London 1789.
  7. ^ Moore, A View of Society and Manners in Italy; with Anecdotes relating to some Eminent Characters London, 1781
  8. ^ Thicknesse, A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, London, 1777.
  9. ^ See Fussell (1987), Buzard (2002), Bohls & Duncan (2005)
  10. ^ As in Casanova's travels.
  11. ^ Alpinism was a development of the nineteenth century.
  12. ^ The Registro dei viaggiatori inglesi in Italia, 1618-1765, consists of 2038 autograph signatures of English and Scottish visitors, some of them scholars, to be sure. (J. Isaacs, "The Earl of Rochester's Grand Tour" The Review of English Studies 3. 9 [January 1927:75-76]).
  13. ^ Bruce Redford, Venice and the Grand Tour (Yale University Press) 1996 presents the British idea of Venice as the epitome and cultural set-piece of the Grand Tour, and "locus of decadent Italianate allure" (p. 6); see also John Eglin, Venice Transfigured: The Myth of Venice in British Culture, 1660-17971962
  14. ^ Paul Fussell (1987), pg. 129
  15. ^ Noted by Redford 1996, Preface.
  16. ^ a b Bohls & Duncan (2005)

[edit] References

  • Elizabeth Bohls and Ian Duncan, ed. (2005). Travel Writing 1700-1830 : An Anthology. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-284051-7
  • James Buzard (2002), "The Grand Tour and after (1660-1840)", in The Cambridge Companion to Travel Writing. ISBN 0-521-78140-X
  • Paul Fussell (1987), "The Eighteenth Century and the Grand Tour", in The Norton Book of Travel, ISBN 0-393-02481-4
  • Edward Chaney (1985), The Grand Tour and the Great Rebellion: Richard Lassels and 'The Voyage of Italy' in the seventeenth century(CIRVI, Geneva-Turin, 1985.
  • Edward Chaney (2004), "Richard Lassels": entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
  • Edward Chaney, The Evolution of the Grand Tour: Anglo-Italian Cultural Relations since the Renaissance (Frank Cass, London and Portland OR, 1998; revised edition 2000).
  • Edward Chaney ed. (2003), The Evolution of English Collecting (Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2003).
  • Geoffrey Trease, The Grand Tour (Yale University Prewss) 1991.
  • Andrew Witon and Maria Bignamini, Grand Tour: The Lure of Italy in the Eighteenth-Century.

[edit] External links

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See also