Grand Tour

Travelers liked to allude to the history of the city they were visiting and thereby show off the studious side of their preparation for the journey, carried out in the library as well as the street. Treating as exceptions those writers who made the past a central plank of their account, the information provided, for which the sources are often cited (Deseine, writing about Florence in 1699, refers to Villani, Machiavelli, Nardi and others) is fairly similar, at least where the large cities are concerned. For example: Florence, founded by Sulla’s soldiers, who were given the land as a reward, was razed to the ground by the Goths and not repopulated until the time of Charlemagne, on his orders. The obscure beginnings of its history contrast with the brilliant period of the republic, whose expansion culminated in the important conquest of Pisa. The city would have been able to increase its power still further if it had not been torn by internal struggles and warring factions, even if these conflicts were precisely what allowed the Medici family to consolidate its not yet institutional authority.
Pisa, founded by the Greeks according to some travelers or the Etruscans in the view of others and then conquered by the Roman empire, had a glorious past as a maritime power, whose exploits are often mentioned (victory against the Muslim raiders with the help of the Genoese, assistance to Jerusalem, conquest of Sardinia from the Saracens). This was brought to an end in 1284 with the defeat inflicted by Genoa at Meloria. Attention is drawn to the fact that it had once been one of the most powerful cities in Italy and, in comparison with the modest present, nostalgic glances are cast back to an era of which testimony survives in the decaying grandeur of the city.
Arezzo, conquered by the Romans, to whom the city provided great support in the war against Carthage, reacquired its freedom under the rule of bishops and then had to fight many battles against the Florentines and Sienese for its independence, before submitting to Cosimo and enjoying lasting peace under the Medici.

Siena, founded by the Gauls under the leadership of Brennus, was also a Roman colony and regained its liberty after the fall of the empire, preserving it, between the many battles with the Florentines and the tyranny of the Petruzzi family, until 1555, when it was defeated by Grand Duke Cosimo and became a possession of the Medici.

The common denominator was, as is clear, the Medici family and in particular Cosimo I, who succeeded in realizing the plan of territorial reorganization on which his predecessor Alessandro had embarked. With Cosimo the word “Tuscany” was transformed from a geographical term into a political designation, thanks in part to the granting of the grand-ducal title by Pope Pius V in 1569. The policy of the grand dukes had been one of strong centralization (and they always had to be on guard against internal opposition) and this is exactly how travelers perceived it, giving credit to the Medici family for their observations of not just a historical but also political, economic and artistic character. In this way they offered an eloquent demonstration of the fact that the grand dukes’ intention of exercising their authority over the territory in a systematic way was seen as having been a success.

The part of the accounts dedicated to the rule of the Lorraine (that of Francis Stephen, in the form of a regency on the death of Gian Gastone, last of the Medici, in 1737, and then that of Peter Leopold, from 1765 to 1790) should be considered contemporary commentary rather than history. Enthusiastic when penned by admirers of the 18th-century philosophical esprit, they told how the Lorraine had redesigned the structure of the state through important interventions of reform, including those intended to curb the role of the nobility and the clergy and to favor economic revival. It was a very lively period, on which travelers expatiated at length, and which, thanks to some of Peter Leopold’s initiatives (including the dissolution of the guilds and the adoption of a new penal code that abolished torture and the death penalty), aroused a great deal of interest even at the level of the European political debate. For example A. C. Valéry (1828), associating the «sad, haughty, heavy and uniform» façade of Palazzo Pitti with absolute power, took care to point out that the connection was no longer true of the present dukes, who had ruled from that palace with great reasonableness and moderation, making «this happy land the political oasis of Italy». Obviously this view, which at a given point became unanimous, had not been shared by everyone, especially at the moment, fairly traumatic for the Tuscans, of the change of dynasty. In 1739, for instance, de Brosses argued that the Medici had been superior: «nothing could reflect their gifts better than the fact that, after usurping the sovereignty of a free people, they had been able to make themselves loved and missed by it». He goes on to describe the nostalgia of the citizens: «the Tuscans are so convinced of this truth that almost all of them would give a third of their possessions to see them return, and another third not to have the Lorraine; I believe that nothing can equal the contempt in which the latter are held, except the hatred of the Milanese for the Piedmontese».