07 The Grand Tour
The custom for young well-to-do Europeans and North Americans to go on a Grand Tour or journey of cultural discovery around Europe was hugely influential on architecture during the 17th and 18th centuries. The Grand Tour helped to define Rome as the cultural center of the Western world, spread classical ideas and began the tradition of “culture tourism” that continues today.
From the 17th to the early 19th century, young aristocrats from Britain, Germany and Scandinavia, together with many well-to-do young men from North America, flocked to the towns and cities of southern Europe on the Grand Tour. Their main destination was Italy, although many stopped off in Paris and other places in France en route. In the 18th century, before there were railways or even good roads, travel on this scale was a major undertaking requiring careful preparation, guidance and money. Traveling slowly and stopping often, many Grand Tourists were away for months or even years.
Some travelers, with plenty of money and time, and a sense of adventure, took in still more out-of-the-way places, such as Switzerland or Spain. For a few, such as the restless Lord Byron, yet more far-flung destinations had a stronger attraction—Greece proved an occasional destination for these adventurers, and a few, such as Byron himself, visited Constantinople.
“According to the law of custom, and perhaps of reason, foreign travel completes the education of an English gentleman.”
Edward Gibbon
A classical education The principal goal of the Grand Tourists was Italy and especially Rome. Here they hoped to absorb the atmosphere of Rome and other cities, to look at classical works of art, to learn about architecture and to buy examples of art that they would display in their houses on their return home.
Architects on the Grand Tour
Since Inigo Jones traveled to Europe in the early 17th century many architects wanted to go on the Grand Tour and visit buildings such as the château of Vaux le Vicomte (below). Since architects did not usually come from rich families, a young architect wanting to explore Europe would usually attach himself to an aristocratic patron. Robert Adam, architect for Syon House, went to Europe with the Hon. Charles Hope, the younger brother of the man for whom Adam’s brother, John, was working on Hopetoun House; James Wyatt traveled with a member of the British embassy to Venice; William Kent, a joiner’s son from Bridlington, won the support of some Yorkshire gentry. Others had to travel to Italy under their own steam. James Stuart, for example, walked most of the way to Rome, earning money as he went by painting fans. Such was the appetite of architects to see the buildings of antiquity and of the Italian masters who had drawn inspiration from them.
In Rome the Grand Tourists headed for the great classical sites—such as the Forum, the Pantheon and the Colosseum. They sought out the best examples of ancient statuary and they used their connections to gain entry to private houses to view the owners’ collections. Most traveled with a tutor, who could steer them in the direction of the best ruins and works of art, and with one or more guidebooks, for information about routes, itineraries and antiquities.
They looked at more recent monuments, too, admiring Rome’s baroque planning and Renaissance churches, and perhaps heading off into the countryside to view some of the villas designed by Palladio. Some later Grand Tourists also traveled south to Naples to take in the ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum, where they could see how the Romans decorated the interiors of their houses as the buildings emerged from their covering of volcanic debris.
Culture shopping All the while, under the guidance of their tutors, the tourists looked out for works of art to bring back home. As well as paintings, classical statues were highly prized, as were engravings by artists such as Piranesi, showing the Roman antiquities they had seen. For those who went to Venice, Canaletto’s great paintings of the city were especially popular.
Many Grand Tourists sent crates of paintings, statues, books and engravings back to their homes. Once the new owners of this material had returned home too, there came the challenge of finding somewhere to display it all. In England especially, the art of architecture was seen as a fitting pursuit for a young aristocrat—after all, it was part of the business of running a large estate, which is what many of these people were destined to do for the rest of their lives.
The architectural influence So the Grand Tourists returned home and began to adapt, extend or rebuild their houses—both to accommodate their new collections and to reflect the classical taste they had imbibed. This process was a major factor in which classical architectural ideas were spread across Europe. The fashion in the 18th century for Palladian villas, for example, was fueled by the Grand Tour. One of the greatest of these, Lord Burlington’s house at Chiswick, was designed specifically to house the works of art that Burlington had acquired on his tour.
Later trends toward neoclassicism were similarly inspired by travels in Italy. Robert Adam himself visited Italy, and so was well able to respond to his clients’ requests to build not just neoclassical houses, but houses that had bits of antique statuary or even ancient imported columns built into them.
The Grand Tour had a further and deeper impact. It set the agenda for the way the cultural history of Europe has been seen ever since. Millions of culture tourists—less rich but equally eager to seek out their artistic roots—have followed in their footsteps. Rome, Venice and Pompeii (not to mention Paris) have been on the tourist map for north Europeans and North Americans ever since.
the condensed idea
Culture tourism arrives
| timeline |
| 1705 |
Joseph Addison’s Remarks on Several Parts of Italy, a popular guidebook, is published |
| 1722 |
Jonathan Richardson’s An Account of the Statues, Bas-reliefs, Drawings and Pictures of Italy, France, etc. is the first English guide to works of art in continental Europe |
| 1797 |
Mariana Starke begins to write her Letters from Italy, an influential guide to the country |
| 1840 |
The rise of the railway system puts an end to the type of travel that typified the Grand Tour |
