The Grand Tour of Italy

Torre di Bellosguardo, a 13th-century villa with an extaordinary view of Florence, Tuscany.

It is true that the English of the 19th century were very different from their compatriots who had arrived in Italy a century before. The first came for the sun, and the second came for the culture. The difference is quite significant. 

In the 18th century, the Grand Tour was something that every English youth of good-standing had to have in order to complete his formal education. He was accompanied by a servant and the course he took was quite specific. His carriage entered Europe by the border in southern France, it followed the Tyrrhenian coastline until Rome, dipped down to Naples, back upwards to Florence to end in Venice. Exiting the country happened by crossing one of three passages in the Alps.

Palazzo Pitti, Florence.

The young Englishman, Oxford-educated, knew excellent Latin and, with letters of reference on his person, was immediately welcomed into the palaces of the Italian aristocracy where, besides attending the various balls and entertainment, it was his duty to study the artistic treasures in the galleries of whomever was hosting him and, as he was touring the city, fill his album with various sketches made of what he had seen.

To the English nobility that would come to stay in Tuscany in the 19th century was eventually added those who belonged to the middle class, and who cared less about Art. Their incentive to visit was the sun and cheap way of life. They would rent or buy a villa outside Florence at a low price and hire local butlers and maids at equally low wages. In this way, they were able to live at a level that they could only dream of in their own country.

A Villa in Tuscany.

And they were very disagreeable. They laughed at the Italians’ hot temperament and talked down to them. Of course, they were really not open-minded, and this was made even more evident by their Victorian sense of propriety.  And I don’t understand why the engraving of Queen Victoria’s portrait should be found hanging in every Florentine pension just because these small inns mostly cater to Thomas Cook clients.

Austere Tuscan atmosphere in the medieval-Renaissance Torre di Bellosquardo with exquisite original features still intact.

Those who had decided to establish themselves in Florence were shivering with cold. Compared to the narrow houses of London or Bristol, with their small rooms and carpeted floors, Tuscany’s naked villas would be anything but warm. I could imagine them looking stoically at the painted walls with the trompe l’oeil marbles that the Italians like so much, and feel a little like they’d been cheated by the geographers. What warm climate were they writing about?

My long sojourn in Tuscany is described in the book: A Year in Tuscany