Grand Tour

In the broad typological range of the genre, one common element was the prevalence of the desire to provide a “guide,” from which derived a tendency to repetition that would later be standardized with the Baedekers (among the earliest and most popular guidebooks in the modern sense of the term): the same itineraries, the same judgments, even the same anecdotes. In Florence, for example, the standard route ran from the cathedral to Palazzo Pitti, with expressions of admiration for the well-planned and paved streets, Giotto’s Tower and the ceilings of Pietro da Cortona and of horror for the Gothic of Santa Croce and the vulgar profusion of the Medici Chapels.

A second common element regards the close links that were established between one text and another, with no one ignorant of the views of his predecessors, whether he chose to refute, incorporate or respect them. The expectations of the travel writers, in short, were already shaped by what they had read in advance. So it was difficult to get away from the clichès by which one went to Rome to see the triumph of the baroque and the ceremonies for Easter, to Venice for the spectacle of the carnival and to Pisa to admire the magnificence of the Piazza dei Miracoli, to take just a few examples. However, it is true that the recurrence of the subjects led to an increasing accuracy in the information supplied. If breaking out of the logic of the commonplace was in fact something that could only be attempted by “great” writers, improving the description of some privileged places served to provide precise depictions of the objects which were richly informative as well as revealing, by their very repetitiveness, of the tastes and predilections of the age.