Grand Tour

Maps were an indispensable tool for travelers, during their preparations as well as on the journey itself. At first sold separately, from the 18th century onward they began to be included in guidebooks, or at least the ones that covered limited itineraries and particular zones.

Misson (1688) discusses this subject at length, advising travelers to procure maps prior to their departure and not on the spot, and to obtain ones made by different mapmakers, pointing out that the unknown were often more reliable than the known; to have canvas backings applied to the maps and keep them rolled up around a special stick (while many other authorities suggested applying canvas backings in order to be able to fold them up and put them in a pocket); to note down the mistakes and communicate them to the person responsible as an aid to progress in the science of cartography.

A century later (1765) Lalande, responding to the rampant complaints about the incompleteness and unreliability of the geographic and topographic material available, recommended d'Anville's maps of the peninsula in two sheets, Magini's atlas and Blaeu's Novum Italiae Theatrum (1743).

The shrewdest travelers also equipped themselves with road guides, pocket-size volumes that described the main routes of the country to which they were devoted, giving the distances and the time required to reach the various localities and indicating the presence of post and custom houses. They included illustrated maps and synoptic tables.