"Observation, with extensive view"? English-Italian travel narratives, 1700-1820

Abstract

Italy was central in English imaginary geography throughout the eighteenth century, whether as a mandatory stop on a routine Grand Tour or a Napoleonic-era locus amoenus of radical utopian escapism: the British public consumed a continuous and constantly growing diet of travel accounts about Italy throughout the century and well into the next. The catalogue of travel narratives largely or entirely about Italy stretches across . the century not only chronologically but also temperamentally, comprehending those traditionally labeled both Augustan and Romantic. Italian travels provide, therefore, an exceptional opportunity to explore some of the characteristic uses of travel narratives in eighteenth-century England.