As was shown last week, Florence didn’t appear in the visual record until later in the century when the city was mapped out for visitors. Eventually, a standard guide to Florence published by the city’s single printing house appeared. This guide divided the city up into quarters and documented every church and building of significance within each quadrant. The geographical knowledge of visitors would vary. Stendhal (shown here) says he knew the city well from studying maps beforehand, but on arrival he bought a “descriptive guide.” However, even armed with this he still had to stop twice to ask directions to Santa Croce. Stendhal dispensed with a cicerone, but it’s likely that Baron Krüdener had his own guide as part of his entourage. From reading Lady Miller’s letters, one gets the impression that she may have been more self-reliant than the German aristocrat. Though she and her husband sought advice from curators, she had her own method of recording art such as drawing antiquities in her notebook. They even measured the Venus de Medici!
Next instalment of Grand Tour here.
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