Visitors to Verona

Even before the advent of mass tourism, Verona was a popular destination for travellers, including those undertaking the popular 'Grand Tour' across Europe. In this book, Caroline Webb compares the experiences of travellers from the era of Shakespeare to the years following the incorporation of the Veneto into the new kingdom of Italy in 1866. She considers their reasons for visiting Verona as well as their experiences and expectations once they arrived. The majority of English visitors between 1670 and 1760 were young members of the aristocracy, accompanied by tutors, who arrived on their way to or from Rome, as part of a 'Grand Tour' intended to 'finish' their classical education. With the Industrial Revolution in the second half of the eighteenth century, and the resultant increasing wealth of the upper middle classes, the number of visitors to Verona increased although this tourism was derailed once Napoleon invaded Italy in the late 1790s. After 1815 and the allied victory at Waterloo there was a new flood of visitors, previously deprived of the opportunity of continental travel during the Napoleonic wars.
As the nineteenth century progressed, especially with the arrival of the railway, an increasing number of visitors appeared from across Europe and even from across the Atlantic, keen to explore the fabled city of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. In comparing a myriad of varied accounts, this book provides an unrivalled perspective on the history of one of Italy's most seductive cities.

Caroline Webb graduated in History from the University of London and read Italian and Art History in Cambridge and Verona. She has worked as a historical researcher and teacher and is co-author of The Earl and His Butler in Constantinople: The Secret Diary of an English Servant among the Ottomans (I.B.Tauris, 2008).

Plan of Verona
Preface
1 The aims of travel
2 The practicalities of travel
3 Accommodation and food in the city
4 L'Arena di Verona
5 Travellers' opinions of the city
6 The city's civic architecture
7 The Veronesi
8 The French occupation
9 The Austrian occupation
10 Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
11 Scipione Maffei
12 Verona's many churches
13 San Zeno Maggiore
14 Religion through tourists' eyes
15 The Scaligeri monuments
16 Piazza Erbe
17 The Giusti gardens
18 Local artists and aristocratic 'collections'
19 Music and theatre
20 Matters of health
21 Visitors' views on local agriculture and industry
22 The dress of local people
23 How the English saw the Italians
Postscript
Appendix 1 A history time-line
Appendix 2 Biographical notes
Endnotes
Bibliography
Index