The Grand Tour was the principally 17th- to early 19th-century custom of a traditional trip through Europe, with Italy as a key destination, undertaken by upper-class young European men of sufficient
c. 1750 painting of six British gentlemen in Rome while on the Grand Tour
Portrait of Francis Basset by Pompeo Batoni, 1778. The Grand Tourist, like Francis Basset, would become familiar with antiquities, though this altar is an invention of the painter.[citation needed]
A portrait of Douglas, 8th Duke of Hamilton, on his Grand Tour with his physician Dr. John Moore and the latter's son John. A view of Geneva in the distance, where they stayed for two years. Painted by Jean Preudhomme in 1774.
Northerners found the contrast between Roman ruins and modern peasants of the Roman Campagna an educational lesson in vanity (vanitas). Painting by Nicolaes Pietersz Berchem, 1661, Mauritshuis
Cicerone is an old term for a guide who conducts visitors and sightseers to museums, galleries, etc., and explains matters of archaeological, antiquarian, historic or artistic interest. The word is pr
Grand Tour
…undertaken by upper-class young European men of sufficient means and rank when they had come of age, at about 21 years old, typically accompanied by a tutor or family member. The custom—which flourished from about 1660 until the advent of large-scale rail transport in the 1840s and was associated with a…