The community of travellers that in the course of time has crossed geographical boundaries, centuries and run endless routes, has made of travelling a status, that of traveller, and made traveling become a particular attitude of life. In fact, travelling represents not only the chance to reach other places, but also means to open a window onto the world and the history. For this reason, there's a lively interest for travel journals, which in the 1800s were almost always made of notes written ongoing, as the travel was continuing. Our aim is to understand how the English looked at Italy, at Rome and Naples in particular, thanks to the study of some journals and letters kept in the Bristol Record Office. From the grand tourist who feels deeply the universalistic idea of culture trough the art and the passion for archaeology, to the business traveller and the one who travels on holiday with the family, all these travellers had in common the research for the beauty of landscape, nature and civilization origin. From the past emerge social relations, customs, means of transportation, costs, types of inns and hotels, parties, receptions, ceremonies, visits to kings, even the coronation of Pius IX. However, the time of travel doesn't conjugate in the past but in the present, because it includes the «time of humanity». Differently from what it may seem at first, then, the travel diary has the ability to transform words in images that talk about our present, frames of life and landscapes that capture our history.
Bristol travellers in the Italy of the nineteenth century: landscape, art and culture
Barra V
2016
Abstract
The community of travellers that in the course of time has crossed geographical boundaries, centuries and run endless routes, has made of travelling a status, that of traveller, and made traveling become a particular attitude of life. In fact, travelling represents not only the chance to reach other places, but also means to open a window onto the world and the history. For this reason, there's a lively interest for travel journals, which in the 1800s were almost always made of notes written ongoing, as the travel was continuing. Our aim is to understand how the English looked at Italy, at Rome and Naples in particular, thanks to the study of some journals and letters kept in the Bristol Record Office. From the grand tourist who feels deeply the universalistic idea of culture trough the art and the passion for archaeology, to the business traveller and the one who travels on holiday with the family, all these travellers had in common the research for the beauty of landscape, nature and civilization origin. From the past emerge social relations, customs, means of transportation, costs, types of inns and hotels, parties, receptions, ceremonies, visits to kings, even the coronation of Pius IX. However, the time of travel doesn't conjugate in the past but in the present, because it includes the «time of humanity». Differently from what it may seem at first, then, the travel diary has the ability to transform words in images that talk about our present, frames of life and landscapes that capture our history.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
