The Great Tour

The Great Tour
The Great Tour was a trip around the continent which lasted about a year and it was made by the young of the English nobleness at the end of their studying cycle. In the middle of the XVIII century it was a common fashion for the males; just later it was extended to the women. The aim was to give a cosmopolitan culture trough the familiarity with good society, with culture, art and politics of the continent, before their official presentation to the Court. The principal stages were Paris, an undisputed center of the fashion and Italy, particularly Rome, Naples and Venice, which were chosen first of all for their cultural part and for the archeological sites. There was someone who arrived even in Egypt, passing through Greece, ancestral model of the European culture and first of all British. In this way, in Anglo-Saxon world, but even German ( we have to remember Goethe’s Italy travelling )the taste and the fashion of ruins was born and the knowledge and love for the Palladian architecture extended. The fan called of the Great tour were always present amongst the souvenirs taken at home and they could be defined as postcards of the time. In Italy, it was also possible to find not mounted pages, with the sights of the greatest monuments.