How the Grand Tour transformed eighteenth-century culture in Britain
It has been called a rite of passage – a sort of gap-year for the nobility. In reality the Grand Tour usually lasted for several years, and was a sort of ‘finishing school’ for aristocrats, giving them a more rounded education. For some it was a chance to ‘sow wild oats’ before settling down. For many, it was a Continental booze-up, a prolonged itinerary of excessive consumption, gambling and sexual experimentation. For others it was a chance to experience European culture and ideas, polish up their foreign language skills, encounter beautiful paintings, architecture and objets d’art and then to return home with souvenirs with which they filled their newly built country homes.
The term ‘Grand Tour’ was first used in a travel guide published in 1670. At that stage it was reserved for aristocrats finishing their education, but as time went on it broadened its appeal to include a whole army of tourist-painters, collectors, aspiring architects and classical scholars. From 1800, increasing numbers of women completed their version of the Grand Tour and the length of the typical tour dropped from perhaps four years to an average of two years.
The Tour promoted an industry built around the needs of the tourists, particularly in Paris and in Rome. In Britain it gave employment to tutors, known as ‘bear leaders’ or ciceroni, who had the thankless task of accompanying the Grand Tourists while trying to keep their charges on the straight and narrow.
On the Continent it boosted hotels, restaurants and pensions (lodging houses). It brought wealth and employment all along the route, traditionally to Paris, down to Lyon, and across the Alps. From Turin to Venice, then on to Florence, Rome and Naples, the tourists brought traffic chaos – and money. Above all, the Grand Tour helped broaden the mind and complete the education of a great many highly privileged and influential young men. Never before had so many members of the ruling class been so close to European culture and Continental influences.
The Tour gave a boost to antiquarians and to the excavations at Herculaneum, which started in 1738, and at Pompeii, discovered in 1748. It provided an outlet for a small army of artists such as Canaletto, churning out scenes which would be chosen by the tourists as mementos of their tour. It generated an outlet for artefacts from Rome and Ancient Greece, as well as providing employment for unscrupulous copyists and fakers. It led to a revival in classical styles, influencing designers and architects who then developed those ideas back in Britain. And it provided inspiration for hundreds of artists who helped feed a mania for all things Italian. As a side effect, the Tour was a gigantic exercise in networking, because the people completing their Grand Tour frequently did so in a sort of itinerant herd, often sticking together, conversing solely in English and reducing encounters with the locals to an absolute minimum as they swept like locusts from one cultural centre to the next.
The Tour resulted in some extraordinary male fashions. Men were nicknamed ‘macaronis’ – a derogatory reference to anything Italian – if they wore ludicrously high, heavily powdered wigs, or followed the trend for tight trousers, or walked with a dandified swagger.
The Grand Tour really got going after 1660. Of course, before that time people had travelled abroad as tourists, but with the restoration of the monarchy a well-trodden path developed, focusing on Paris and Rome. It reached its heyday during the 1760s and was still in full swing until 1789. The French Revolution was followed by a deterioration in Anglo–French relations, to say nothing of the risk of a noble tourist losing his head. Travellers could still set off from Dover for Ostend and from there travel through Germany, Austria and Switzerland and down into Italy. However, when Napoleon invaded Italy in 1796 that country also became out of bounds. Some adapted their tour to include Greece and the rest of the Ottoman Empire, travelling as far as Egypt, but for many the Tour was suspended until peace in Europe was restored by the Treaty of Paris in 1815. When it re-commenced, the Tour to France and Italy had started to go down-market, attracting tourists on a cut-down version, and by the middle of the nineteenth century the advent of the train had led to the birth of mass tourism; the Grand Tour as an exclusive aristocratic venture was effectively over.
Metropolitan Museum, New York1/8The Hope Dionysos, a Roman copy of a Greek bronze, acquired by Thomas Hope during one of his extensive Grand Tours. The Hope diamond was another acquisition he made, along with an entire collection of vases purchased from Sir William Hamilton.
Wikimedia, courtesy of University of Texas2/8Map of Europe from 1700 showing national boundaries and, in red, the route taken on a typical Grand Tour through France and Italy.
Lewis Walpole Library3/8English visitors standing out like a sore thumb among Parisiennes in 1825.
Metropolitan Museum, New York4/8Canaletto’s view of Campo Sant’ Angelo in Venice
Metropolitan Museum, New York5/8A nécessaire, French-made, containing useful items such as tweezers, mirror, file and scent bottles, dating from the 1760s.
Metropolitan Museum, New York6/8A fourth-century gold glass medallion with mother and child, acquired by Horace Walpole and exhibited at Strawberry Hill until 1842.
Metropolitan Museum, New York7/8Case for a travelling service, made in France in 1788.
8/8The Grand Tour by Mike Rendell (Shire Publications) is out now. Buy a copy here.
