Grand Tour

The legend of the Etruscan foundation of Cortona was also deduced from its circle of walls, dating from the 5th century BC. The various gates in this ring were built during the Roman and medieval eras. Delpuech de Comeiras (1804) noted that the walls were constructed from huge blocks of stone laid one on top of the other without lime or any other kind of mortar. Many others travelers were struck by their grandeur, and this was the image that remained most deeply impressed on their minds.

However, Cortona acquired its unforgettable reputation in the 19th century, with the discoveries made by the great Etruscologists. The cultural climate was ripe, and Mme du Boccage was able to assert that «the Etruscan seeds of the arts are flourishing again in Tuscany» while the great collector and student of antiquities Richard Colt Hoare (1786-87) began to investigate the vestiges of ancient Etruria, starting out from Siena. In the words of the famous British Etruscologist George Dennis, no city in Italy was «more venerable than Cortona. Ere the days of Hector and Achilles, ere Troy itself arose – Cortona was.» As well as in Dennis's work of great and still appreciated scientific value, the city's fame was spread through the writings of the German Wilhelm Dorow and the refined Elisabeth Hamilton Gray, and through the works of the artist Samuel Ainsley, who accompanied Dennis on his Etruscan excursions, painting watercolors of great evocative power. Hence the spell of Etruscan Cortona was to a large extent cast by the great archeologists of the Romantic era.

In fact the city was also famous for the cultural activities promoted by its celebrated Accademia Etrusca, founded in 1727 under the auspices of the grand-ducal court, which hoped to use it to strengthen the link between the ancient civilization of the region and the Medici grand duchy, at a time when the dynasty's legitimacy had been brought into question. After an early phase in which, as Barthélemy says, it set out to «bring the ancient monuments to light», the academy became one of the liveliest centers of debate among the more prominent representatives of intellectual life in Tuscany under the rule of the house of Lorraine. These activities remained for the most part unknown to travelers, earning no more than an occasional reference to the academy's collection of papers, such as Barthélemy's in 1756. However, the Accademia Etrusca's collection of antiquities was often mentioned as a useful and instructive source of information for the traveler.

Even outside this specific area of interest Cortona still made an appearance in accounts of journeys in Italy, given its position on the road to Perugia, one of the main routes of the Grand Tour. Among its visitors were some of the most illustrious travelers, including Smollett, Peter Beckford, Woods and Mariana Starke. Forsyth and Lalande in particular paid the city tribute, with the latter compiling a meticulous list of churches, monasteries, palaces, works of art and collections that «can still be of great use in reconstructing a cultural heritage today» (Brilli, 1986b). A deterrent to a wider knowledge of the place was the steep ascent that had to be negotiated to get there, described by many as «inaccessible» (P. Beckford, 1787) or «arduous» (Brockedon). So the foreigners who did go there were always a fairly select group, made up of travelers strongly motivated by antiquarian interests.