CHRISTOPHER HIBBERT EDITIONS THAMES METHUEN - 1987 Pages : 256 - Format : 19,5*25 cm Bon Etat
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Description et Photos
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IMPORTANTE ICONOGRAPHIE
’When an Englishman comes to Paris he cannot appear until he has undergone a total metamorphosis. At his first arrival he finds it necessary to send for the taylor, peruquier, hatter, shoemaker, and every other tradesman concerned in the equipment of the human body. He must even change his buckles and the form of his ruffles... a variety of dress is absolutely indispensable for all those who pretend to any rank above the mere bourgeois. On his return to his own country all this frippery is useless.’
Smollett always maintained a healthy scepticism about the value of the Grand Tour, which could often be as uncomfortable and dangerous as it was enlightening and uplifting. But throughout the eighteenth century the Tour was an essential part of a young Englishman’s education; spending up to five years on the Continent, these young men would travel through France and Italy, and return via Switzerland, Germany, Austria and the Netherlands. In Christopher Hibbert’s vivid and entertaining account we follow the tourists on their journey andusing the letters and diaries of such celebrated figures as Boswell and Walpole, Gibbon and Beckford - we see eighteenth-century Europe through their eyes, as they describe the cities they visited, the buildings and art treasures they were expected to see, the inns at which they stayed, the food they ate, the people they met, the amours they enjoyed, the splendour and squalor they encountered. We learn their opinions of foreign manners, customs and architecture, and the consequent effects of the Grand Tour upon artistic taste and habits of life in England, the growth of its collections of art and the development of its architecture and gardens. The Grand Tour is extensively illustrated with pictures researched from museums and collections throughout the world.
