Description
Book SynopsisIn 1775, the young Count de Sade decided to turn a flight from legal trouble into an opportunity to undertake the grand tour. He transformed his sojourns in Florence, Rome, Naples, and their environs into a philosophical travelogue; alongside advice on where to go and what to see, his Journey to Italy would include analyses of local customs and institutions, history and politics, natural phenomena, and the development of the arts.
For today’s readers, Journey to Italy provides remarkable portraits of major Italian cities and the surrounding countryside, vivid accounts of aristocratic and popular entertainments, and a clear sense of what it was like to be a tourist in eighteenth-century Italy from scams, rough roads, and unreliable guidebooks to learned interlocutors, balls, and nights at the opera. We witness Sade learning about the lives of Roman emperors, the machinations and misdeeds of pontiffs, the power struggles of the Medici, the ancient libertin
Table of Contents
Introduction: Marquis de Sade’s Grand Tour I. Florence and the Start of the Journey from La Coste II. Rome III. Environs of Rome: Journey to Frascati, Grotta Ferrata, Marino, Castel Gandolfo, Albano, and Ariccia IV. Naples V. Environs of Naples VI. Route from Rome to Naples or from Naples to Rome Dossiers: I. General Material II. Florence III. Rome Correspondence Bibliography Index
