British travellers on Grand Tour: C18th

The term Grand Tour first appeared in the Voyage or a Com­pleat Journey through Italy 1670, by Fr­enchman Rich­ard Lassels. Pub­lish­ed in Lond­on, the book became a guide for sch­olars, artists and art col­l­ect­ors who were planning a trip to Italy. Lassels added an important motive for parents who might have been worried about sending their sons (rarely daughters) away: “Tr­avelling pres­er­v­es my young nob­le­man from surfeiting of his pa­r­ents, and weans him from the dan­g­erous fondness of his moth­er. It teaches him wholesome hard­ship; to lie in beds that are none of his ac­quain­tance; to speak to men he never saw bef­ore; top travel in the morn­ing bef­ore day, and in the evening after the day”. But he also warn­ed that Italy is able to “depr­ave the best natures if one will aban­don himself to plea­sure and become a prey to dissol­ute courses and wanton­ness”. Lassels praised the value of stoic endurance whilst abroad.

The Grand Tour was fascinating to me for distinct reasons:
A] Young Grand Tour­ists brought back new, refined tastes in paint­ing, ar­ch­i­tect­ure, furniture, gard­ens and music.
B] Our students loved to read beautiful books like Grand Tour: Lure of Italy in the C18th, by Wilton & Bignamini.
C] My own gap year abroad (pre-university) was a special year of maturity and independence – Lassels was right!

By 1690 the upper classes knew that the orig­ins of true nob­il­ity lay in the pursuit of wisdom and virtue, not in war. Ed­ucat­ion was necess­ary to create a gov­ern­­ing class; educ­a­t­ion that included gramm­ar, geometry and class­ics, plus rel­igion, the arts, languages and man­ners. Once formal education was completed, the young man’s infor­m­al ed­uc­ation was polished by, and integrated with travel. And since only Italy and France had ancient glory, The Grand Tour to Italy and France replaced univ­ersity life as the final freedom al­lowed bef­ore settling down to marriage and running the family estate.

cultivated Grand Tourists painted by Pompeo Batoni, 

Rome, 1774

Only the oldest son could inherit the parents’ estate. So many not-first-born young noblemen saw their future among the growing number of permanent dip­lomats at for­eign courts. Would-be British dip­lo­m­ats were well advis­ed to be familiar with the Continent and to speak French fluently.

Now a new book has been published which I really enjoyed. News From Abroad: Letters Written by British Travellers on the Grand Tour 1728–71, was edited by James T Boulton and T.O McLoughlin and published by Liverpool UP in 2013.

The book acknowledged that Grand Tour was a rite of passage for much of Britain’s upper class during the very late C17th and throu­gh­out the C18th. In News from Abroad, the editors gathered letters from five different travellers as they left Britain en route to Rome, via Paris and the Alps. Since there was no rush to get back home to earn a living, these fortunate young people had the luxury of exploring contemporary European life as it existed in the C18th, AND of analysing history and ancient and Renaissance art.

The first decently sized book to bring diverse letter-writers togeth­er into a single site, News from Abroad is an excellent collection of prim­ary sources that bloggers, teachers and historically-minded trav­ellers rarely get to read. George Lyttelton’s letters were written 1728–30; he came from a fam­ily of aristocrats who wanted George to complete his education abroad. Joseph Spence, tutor to a young noble trav­eller, was almost Lyttel­ton’s contemporary: 1730–3.

The last 3 of the book’s stars travelled and wrote the letters 35 years later: James Boswell 1764–6, James Barry 1765–71 and Caroline Lennox 1766–7. The party only ended at the time of the Napoleonic Wars across Eur­ope; parents seemed unwilling to allow their precious sons to travel abroad.

Although some of these private letters have been published previous­ly, I presume they were originally intended only for the eyes of their families back in Britain. Perhaps that made for more honesty and less self-censorship eg when the original budget ran out, young travellers whined and wheedled extra money out of their long suffering parents.

Another thing.... I would have chosen more broadly amongst the Grand Tourists. James Barry was certainly interested in his own art but I’d have loved to read about would-be professional painters, architects and landscape designers for whom Rome represented the last word in design classicism. I wonder if Thomas Coke, 1st Earl of Leic­ester, left any letters; apparently he spent the equivalent of Australia’s national budget on art during his long tour: 1712-8.

Sir Francis Bacon had recommended in Of Travel 1625 that the things to be ob­serv­ed were the courts of pr­inces, courts of just­ice, chur­ch­es and monas­t­eries, the walls and fort­if­i­c­ations of towns, as well as gar­d­ens, houses, armour­ies, ars­en­als, treas­ur­ies of jewels, robes, cab­in­ets and rarit­ies. Did the five young travellers in this book pay any attention to Bacon’s list of Must Dos?

Of course not. Young people, a long way from home, were possibly not going to be interested in landscape garden design or royal robes. Sometimes they were interested in chasing skirt or meeting ambass­adors or climbing into Vesuvius. Often times they were overwhelmed by the discomforts and dangers they met en route – poor food, dangerous mountain passes, poorly repaired roads, casual VD and broken bones. And occasionally they really wanted to collect treasures for their future homes, once they were married – books, furniture and art objects.

The Grand Tour

by Mike Rendell, 2022

The virtues of travel were great, but they were not a tot­al blessing. Ev­en in 1735 people were already debat­ing whether it was in the in­terest of Brit­ish cul­ture to be so eagerly adopting the taste of another nat­ion. And for the parents, the downside was snobbishness in the returned young­sters. Called Macaroni by fath­ers who no longer recognised their sons, some lads were overdressed and dandified. But we could not expect the young letter writers to make long term judgements on the basis of their own experiences - that was the job for later historians. The two appendices were very useful: A The Hazards of Collecting Renaissance Art on the Grand Tour and B: Advice to Travellers on the Grand Tour. Thanks Boulton & McLoughlin!