Beschreibung:

[Grand Tour]. Grand Tour diary, 2 volumes, 1785-95, manuscript in brown ink on laid paper, [125] + [137] leaves, unfoliated, mainly 30 lines to the page, contemporary vellum, remains of ties, folio (33 x 20.2 cm) (Qty: 2) Apparently unpublished Grand Tour diary written by an attentive English observer, describing several years’ travel through France, Germany, the Low Countries, Switzerland and Italy. The author includes a foreword justifying his work as a practical guide for other Grand Tourists: ‘I regard myself as performing no unuseful task, when I submit to lay aside all pretensions to literary reputation, and to undertake a work which can have no other merit but its’ [sic] utility. To point out the best roads, & best inns, to name the places & churches where the finest paintings are to be found, without entering into any critical disquisition of their respective beauties, is I confess an humble undertaking’. After an initial tour in 1785-90 he seems to have revisited the manuscript, making extensive corrections and additions derived from further travels in 1793-5. In addition to the promised details of transport, accommodation and art collections including the Uffizi, the author provides an interesting description of a criminal trial in Vicenza and reflections on the Swiss style of government: ‘The spirit of toleration is usually supposed to keep pace with the progress of philosophy … But in Switzerland, they may be considered as totally independant [sic] of each other – Toleration is here the effect of government, not of philosophy’.