grand tour

grand tour, multiyear journey, typically running through France and Italy. It was undertaken by aristocratic or wealthy young men from northern Europe, especially England, to complete their education. The term was coined in 1670 by priest and writer Richard Lassels in his Voyage of Italy, but the practice probably began some 100 years earlier. It reached its height during the 18th century and steadily declined in the 19th century. The grand tour had a profound influence on the tourism industry, travel writing, the visual arts, and architecture.

There was no set itinerary for the grand tour, and destinations varied throughout the centuries. By the 18th century, however, a standard route had taken shape, with Paris as an essential stop and Rome as the culmination of the tour. Young Britons customarily crossed the English Channel from Dover to Le Havre, France. They then converged with young men from other countries such as France, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden, and Denmark in Paris for an extended stay. There, grand tourists studied French manners and fashion and took lessons in riding, fencing, and dancing.

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art market: The role of the Grand Tour

Grand tourists then traveled south to Lyon and either crossed into Italy over the Alps via the Mount Cenis Pass (usually carried in a chair) or via the sea from Marseille to Livorno or Genoa. Once in Italy, grand tourists commonly visited Florence, Venice, Rome, and Naples. Florence was known for its Renaissance art, and travelers sought admission to private collections to study the art of Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and Michelangelo, among others. Venice, on the other hand, was known as a party city, and many visitors partook in the annual carnival. The city was also a place to commission or purchase art, as many grand tourists were expected to take souvenirs home. The Venetian artists Canaletto and Giovanni Battista Piranesi created veduta, or “view” paintings, that were popular among tourists: Canaletto painted precise depictions of Venetian architecture, while Piranesi made prints of ancient Roman ruins.

Venice was followed by an extended stay in Rome, the ultimate stop of the grand tour. Young men studied the city’s ancient ruins and its then contemporary Baroque art and architecture. As excavations began at the ancient cities Herculaneum and Pompeii in 1738 and 1748, respectively, grand tourists soon started making their way as far south as Naples. Later, travelers extended the tour to include Sicily and Greece. The return journey often took the eastern route, which went through eastern Europe, Germany, and the Low Countries, making stops in such cities as Vienna, Prague, Dresden, and Berlin.

Between the 16th and 19th century, travel was often expensive and arduous. Travelers usually made their way across the continent via coach, and the grand tour could take two to eight years. Consequently, the journey was possible only for the privileged classes, and the typical grand tourist was a young man with means and leisure time. Travel was meant to round out his classical education, which would have had a thorough grounding in Greek and Latin literature. He was expected to learn about other countries’ politics, economics, and culture—especially their art and architecture. The grand tourist was often accompanied by a tutor or guardian, nicknamed “bear leader” or “cicerone,” tasked with ensuring the proper behaviour of the traveler. These chaperones were sometimes clergymen, but more often they were classical scholars who could otherwise not afford to travel on their own.

Many artists also accompanied grand tourists to document their patrons’ travels. By the second half of the 18th century, however, many artists had become grand tourists themselves. They traveled to Italy to study Renaissance and ancient art, to find inspiration in the landscapes, or to seek patronage. While on the grand tour, British painter Joshua Reynolds was so impressed by the European art academies that he founded the Royal Academy of Arts in London when he returned in 1768. Meanwhile, the Treaty of Paris (1763), which ended the Seven Years’ War, made travel safer across the continent, and more women could partake in the journey. Americans too began crossing the Atlantic Ocean in order to complete their education. The grand tour was interrupted by the French Revolution (1787–99) and the Napoleonic Wars (c. 1800–15), but it quickly resumed with the final defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815. By 1840 the expansion of the railroad had made travel more convenient and affordable. More middle-class individuals and families began traveling, and the era of the aristocratic grand tour was effectively over.

At its zenith, the grand tour cultivated generations of privileged young men, but it also had an impact on the countries the grand tourists visited and on the countries to which they returned. The young travelers brought traffic and disorder, but they also brought money. Along the traditional grand tour route in Paris, Lyon, Genoa, and other cities, restaurants and lodging establishments grew. The young men became patrons of local artists, including Canaletto and Piranesi, and of the antiquarian market. Others gave rise to the demand for copies and, concurrently, forgeries. Meanwhile, the grand tour inspired many of the young men to take an interest in ancient art and to bring home ideas that contributed to the revival of classical styles. Indeed, some historians have credited the grand tour with inspiring architect Inigo Jones, who toured Italy in 1613–14 with his patron Thomas Howard, 2nd earl of Arundel, to popularize classical architecture in England. The grand tour also encouraged the publication of guidebooks, travel accounts, and treatises on art and architecture, including The First and Chief Groundes of Architecture (1563) by architect and painter John Shute, The Elements of Architecture (1624) by the Venetian ambassador Sir Henry Wotton, and History of the Art of Antiquity (1764) by the German art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann.