Persons of reference : Maltese and Sicilian scholars and their importance for the Grand Tour

Abstract

The ‘age of discovery’ and the economic expansion of the central European states destabilised the static medieval concept of the world and the ‘authorities’ on which its scholastic teaching relied (Lohmeier 1979: 3-8). The old order crumbled in the face of the innumerable new discoveries to which it could not accommodate. The scientific societies of the seventeenth century played a central role in transforming the notion of ‘curiositas’ into a positive concept. For example members of the Royal Society in London referred to those who were in sympathy with their aims as ‘curiosi’, whereas the German scientific society called itself the Academia naturae curiosorum. The Royal Society and its European counterparts patronisedtravellers, encouraging them to make observations while travelling, to make contacts and to publish accounts after their return. More and more it was the primacy of experience rather than reliance on traditional authorities which made every educated man`s account of his travels, if based on his honest observations, of unique importance.