Cities and the grand tour
Subtitle: the British in Italy, c.1690-1820
By: Rosemary Sweet
Series: Cambridge social and cultural histories
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2012
Place of publication: Cambridge
Language: eng
Number of pages: 342
ISBN-13: 9781107020504
Subjects: HISTORY / Europe / General; Description and travel; Travelers' writings, British; Travelers; Travel; British; History
Description: "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 Drawing on a wide range of unpublished material, including travel accounts written by women, Rosemary Sweet explores how travel literature helped to create and perpetuate the image of a city; what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"--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Machine generated contents note: 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.