A Victorian on the continent : George Meredith's response to Italy

Abstract

Traditionally grand tourists viewed Italy as the final destination of their cultural and imaginative travel. For them, the Bel Paese was the living representation of a glorious past whose monuments and vestiges, cities and natural beauties, masterly arranged all over the country, still evoke a time when artists and thinkers could express their genius. In the eighteenth and nineteenth century, the Grand Tour made Italy the site where people could experience the ultimate sense of their journey 'for learning and pleasure', where the imaginative and the actual were perfectly intenningled.