Georgian Index - Grand Tour

Grand Tour	Pantheon in Stourhead
Pantheon in Rome

The English upper classes regarded the Grand Tour as an indispensable part of a young man's education. So much so, that a prolonged tour was often substituted for a college education rather than being a mere addendum to a college degree. Since the Grand Tour was intended to be more edifying than amusing, a young English sojourner traveled with a tutor to supervise his lessons and conduct. The group might also be augmented by a Bear Leader, a retired military man to act as protector and 'tamer' of wild young men. The Tour usually lasted from one to five years.

The Grand Tour particularly emphasized France and Italy, which were much admired, but also nearly always included highly civilized Vienna. Amsterdam in Holland and Brussels in Belgium were also frequently included in the Grand Tour. Whether to enter Italy by ship and risk encountering pirates or by sedan chair through the Alps where "there was scarce room for a cloven foot," as one terrified tourist pointed out was problematic. Only the most intrepid went on into Germany where inns were often infested with bedbugs and thieves and border customs inspectors were known to be officious and meddlesome.

The crossing from Dover to Calais could take anywhere from 3 to 12 hours depending on the wind and waves. Then it was on to Paris where an English traveler rented rooms in the fashionable quarter of St. Germain and hired servants. Then off to the tailor for a suit in the French style, silk trimmed with lace. He spent his days on lessons in fencing, riding, and French conversation. The young man learned how to carry himself as a man of fashion and wit. Finally he was ready to enter high society and court life at Versailles. English tourists overwhelmed and awed by the splendors of Versailles, still stoutly maintained as Tobias Smollet did "that the King of England is better, I mean more comfortably, lodged." While there was much to be admired in Paris like: scents, patterned waistcoats, and fine undergarments; the English felt contempt for the foppish French aristocrats and great ladies who were painted and roughed so heavily that their countenances, in the opinion of one tourist, "seem to have no resemblance to human faces." Once Parisian circles had been moved in, other French cities such as Dijon, Lyons, and Marseilles were duly visited.

Safely in Italy after the hazardous crossing from France: Turin, Genoa, Florence, Venice, Rome, and Naples offered much to admire in the way of Roman ruins, Renaissance architecture, paintings, sculpture, and scenery. In Florence the student might study at the Uffiz Gallery. A room called the Tribuna housed the best paintings and Greek sculptures. The museum official, Bianchi was highly admired by connoisseurs until he robbed the gallery and set it on fire. The Tribuna became so famous a part of the Grand Tour that the Royal Family had this English mecca painted by Johann Zoffany.

The time to visit Venice was winter Carnival season when as many as 30,000 tourists flocked to the city of canals. Amid the Byzantine splendor of St. Mark's Square, the visitor mingled with cosmopolitan crowds from all over Europe and the Near East. Even the most jaded sightseer found the masquerades, regattas, comedies, operas, and street parties dazzling. Venice was notorious for its courtesans. It was clearly understood that they were a chief attraction for young Englishmen doing the Grand Tour.

Europe catered to the wealthy English tourists even as wealthy American tourists are capitalized on today. When asked to revive a certain neglected Holy Week ceremony one Pope replied, "Why not? It will amuse the English." The ideal time to visit Rome was in time to see the Easter pageantry. The guidebooks of the day recommended spending three hours a day for six weeks on seeing the many sights of Rome. Tourists gazed at the Coliseum, the Pantheon of Agrippa, the Spanish Steps, and works by Michael Angelo to name a few.

At Naples there was the beautiful bay and across the Bay of Naples lay the excavations of Pompeii and Herculaneum. The cities were stumbled on in connection with well digging in 1748 and 1710 respectively. Pompeii known as Civita until its name was uncovered in 1763. Naturally, every Englishman wanted to try his hand digging at the sites. Often he was led to a spot where his guide had thoughtfully reburied a coin or marble fragment, which might be discovered in the first spade or two of excavation. The English were financing the organized excavations at the buried cities. Visits by Englishmen making the Grand Tour and Thomas Hope's drawings of Classical furnishings made Pompeian styles so popular that they sparked a neoclassical revival. In 1790 an English writer declared, "Everything we now use is made to imitation of those models lately discovered in Italy." Mount Vesuvius erupted several times in the Eighteenth Century providing the perfect elucidation to a tour of the buried cities.

Vienna, Austria offered concerts, beautiful palaces, and Europe's largest zoo. But Paget's tutor had trouble getting him to go out at all after attending only one ball. Young Henry Paget complained of being bored to death by the strict Austrian etiquette.

Brought Home

British patrons and designers sought to re-create the 'landscapes of antiquity'. Their visions of how this landscape might have appeared were formed from reading Latin poetry and from places visited on the Grand Tour, and from the landscape paintings of Claude, Poussin and others. William Kent met Lord Burlington, Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington, in the course of a Grand Tour and they later designed Chiswick House. Charles Hamilton went to Italy after leaving Oxford and later designed Painshill. Henry Hoare was in Italy when he inherited Stourhead. All these men admired the Augustan age and, in the course of making gardens that reflected this taste, the predominant geometry of garden plans became increasingly serpentine.

Henry Hoare II, known in the family as 'the Magnificent', returned from Italy in 1741 to take possession of the Stourhead estate. He made the lake in 1744 and surrounded it with a walk which was conceived as an allegory of Aeneas' voyage after the fall of Troy. The grotto marks a stage in his journey, and the Temple of Flora is inscribed with the caution uttered by the Cumaean Sybil, in Virgil's Aeneid, before she led Aeneas into the underworld to hear the prophecy of Rome's founding: 'Begone! you who are uninitiated, begone!'. Hoare also based his design for the bridge on Palladio's five-arched bridge at Vicenza and expressed the hope that the whole composition would resemble a painting by Gaspar Poussin.