Visitors to Verona : Lovers, Gentlemen and Adventurers

ISBN-13: 9781784536473 / Angielski / Twarda / 2016 / 264 str.

Caroline Webb

Opis

Even before the advent of mass tourism, Verona was a popular destination with travellers, including those undertaking the popular Grand Tour across Europe. In this book, Caroline Webb compares the experiences of travellers from the era of Shakespeare to the years following the incorporation of the Veneto into the new kingdom of Italy in 1866. She considers their reasons for visiting Verona as well as their experiences and expectations once they arrived. The majority of English visitors between 1670 and 1760 were young members of the aristocracy, accompanied by tutors, who arrived on their way to or from Rome, as part of a Grand Tour intended to finish their classical education. With the Industrial Revolution in the second half of the eighteenth century, and the resultant increasing wealth of the upper middle classes, the number of visitors to Verona increased although this tourism was derailed once Napoleon invaded Italy in the late 1790s. After 1815 and the allied victory at Waterloo there was a new flood of visitors, previously deprived of the opportunity of continental travel during the Napoleonic wars. As the nineteenth century progressed, especially with the arrival of the railway, an increasing number of visitors appeared from across Europe and even from across the Atlantic, keen to explore the fabled city of Shakespeare s Romeo and Juliet. In comparing a myriad of varied accounts, this book provides an unrivalled perspective on the history of one of Italy s most seductive cities."

Spis treści

Plan of VeronaPreface 1The aims of travel 2The practicalities of travel3Accommodation and food in the city4L'Arena di Verona 5Travellers' opinions of the city6The city's civic architecture7The Veronesi 8The French occupation 9The Austrian occupation 10Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet11Scipione Maffei 12Verona's many churches13San Zeno Maggiore14Religion through tourists' eyes15The Scaligeri monuments16Piazza Erbe17The Giusti gardens18Local artists and aristocratic 'collections'19Music and theatre20Matters of health21Visitors' views on local agriculture and industry22The dress of local people23How the English saw the ItaliansPostscriptAppendix 1A history time-lineAppendix 2Biographical notesEndnotesBibliographyIndex

O autorze

Caroline Webb graduated in History from the University of London and read Italian and Art History in Cambridge and Verona. She has worked as a historical researcher and teacher and is co-author of The Earl and His Butler in Constantinople: The Secret Diary of an English Servant among the Ottomans (I.B.Tauris, 2008).