Il Grand Tour delle italiane. Viaggi e scrittura odeporica di salonnières tra Sette e Ottocento

This dissertation examines travel writings written by Italian salonnières between the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, with the aim of reassessing women’s participation in the cultural practices associated with the Grand Tour. The focus is on the diaries of the Roman marchioness Margherita Sparapani Gentili Boccapaduli (1735–1820), a close friend of Alessandro Verri; the Greco-Venetian Isabella Teotochi Albrizzi (1760–1836), a key interlocutor of Ippolito Pindemonte and Ugo Foscolo; and the Florentine Carlotta Torrigiani Marchesini (1797–1871), aunt of the senator Ubaldino Peruzzi. The first two texts were only recently discovered and published (in 2019 and 1992 respectively), while Carlotta Torrigiani Marchesini’s Libro di ricordi familiari, dating from 1814-1815, remains unpublished. The manuscript was located and transcribed by the author, who presents it in the documentary appendix alongside other previously unknown travel-related materials, especially letters. These writings provide a basis for interpreting the journeys undertaken by these women in relation to the model of the Grand Tour. Just as the latter functioned as an educational experience that completed the formal training of young aristocrats, the travels of Italian salonnières marked the empirical culmination of their intellectual formation within the salon. From this perspective, the salon emerges not only as a key site of cultural exchange and education, but also as a driving force behind women’s mobility in late eighteenth- and early nineteenthcentury Italy. A close reading of the diaries reveals a wide thematic range, encompassing representations of natural and urban landscapes, observations of economic and commercial practices, and accounts of cultural and social life – across theatres, museums, and scientific collections – as well as an interest in archaeology and popular traditions. These are accompanied by close attention to the practical aspects of travel, including transport, accommodation, and food. Within this descriptive framework, a distinctly gendered perspective emerges, through which the authors engage with and subtly reshape the dominant model of travel writing, which is still largely shaped by the male gaze of Grand Tour travellers. Unlike their male counterparts, who tend to marginalise everyday life and practices of care, the three salonnières pay particular attention to childbirth and obstetric practices, domestic interiors, childhood-related objects, popular customs, and women’s working conditions. This thematic orientation reflects a clearly articulated gendered perspective. This research aims to recover and analyse a body of travel writing that has long been overlooked by scholars, drawing on approaches ranging from historical and philological analysis to comparative, cultural and gender studies. By doing so, the dissertation aims to bridge a significant gap by reconnecting Italian women’s travel writing from this period with the better-known tradition of Grand Tour narratives produced by foreign travellers.