Packaging the Grand Tour: German Women Authors Write Italy, 1791–1874

Packaging the Grand Tour: German Women AuthorsWrite Italy, 1791–1874

Karin Baumgartner

Women in German Yearbook: Feminist Studies in German Literature& Culture, Volume 31, 2015, pp. 1-27 (Article)

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Women in German Yearbook, vol. 31, 2015. Copyright © University of Nebraska Press.

Packaging the Grand Tour: German Women Authors Write Italy, 1791– 1874

karin baumgartner

In this article, I argue that modern tourism came into existence through the writings of female travel writers who taught their audiences at home that Italy could be visit-ed effi ciently, safely, and enjoyably. Their travel guides opened Italy for future trav-elers by providing precise descriptions of Italian landscapes and the intellectual and emotional response to them. Moreover, they broadened women’s knowledge of history, which allowed the readers at home to contextualize what they saw, and, additionally, they introduced the notion of enjoyment and pleasure into traveling. By shifting the focus from “scholarship” and “edifi cation” to “pleasure,” the Italian journey became one suitable for women. By the 1850s, women had become experts in travel and wrote for broad, mixed- gender audiences.

Around 1800, German women began to venture out into the world and to write about their travels. In doing so, they participated in what became the most popular genre of the nineteenth century.1 Travel litera-ture’s beginnings in autobiographical writing made it easy for women— highly profi cient in fi rst- person narratives— to contribute to travel writ-ing and fi nd a publisher for their texts. Gender is undoubtedly at the core of this genre; during the nineteenth century, the tourist came to be seen as female in the popular imagination, in particular after Thomas Cook invented the package tour and fl ooded the Continent with British tourists (Buzard 58, 82), whereas the traveler was most often embodied by fa-mous male authors and explorers.2 If we recognize the close association of tourism and gender, it is worth investigating what female travelers add-ed to the discourse on travel writing. In this article I pursue the question of how women travelers took up the conventional motifs of travel writ-ing, bent them to their needs, and shaped narratives that were then pub-lished. How did traveling women address and negotiate the limitations placed on women’s movement and still venture out to observe what was

2 women in german yearbook 31

foreign? In other words, how did women manage to leave their “mov-ing parlors” (rollende Wohnzimmer) in order to see objects worthy of de-scription at close range?3 The four authors discussed here— Friederike Brun (1765– 1835), Elisa von der Recke (1754– 1833), Therese von Art-ner (1777– 1829), and Fanny Lewald (1811– 89)— published travel books about Italy between 1791 and 1847 and thus provide a diachronic survey of how women’s travel writing evolved over the crucial years of the early nineteenth century when travel turned into tourism.4

Each writer availed herself of models that described travel and that were already in circulation, either by focusing on the picturesque (i.e., landscape), antiquity, or contemporary Italy. Over time the focus shifted from Italy as an eternal space— a backdrop for visual enjoyment— to the people and cultures of contemporary Italy. My objective is to anchor each text in its particular cultural context and trace how these texts, spanning fi ve decades, positioned the female traveler within the foreign country. I argue that these travel narratives by women helped make Italy accessible for future travelers in three ways: fi rst, by providing precise descriptions of Italian landscapes and the intellectual and emotional response to them; second, by broadening women’s knowledge about history, which allowed readers to contextualize what they saw; and third, by introducing the ele-ment of enjoyment and pleasure into the trip. By shifting the focus from “scholarship” and “edifi cation” to “pleasure,” the Italian journey became one suitable for women. At the same time, the later travel narratives, speaking to a broad, mixed- gender audience, indicate that women had become experts in travel and that men, too, began to travel for pleasure.

The article is divided into fi ve sections. First, I give an overview of the four writers and of Italy as a travel destination. The second section addresses theoretical considerations as they pertain to travel writing as fi rst- person narratives. The third deals with the style of presentation these authors chose for their travel books. In the fourth section I discuss the implied reader in each text and investigate the travel conditions for wom-en in the time period. The fi nal section concentrates on the presentation of Italy. Here, I am particularly interested in how these travel narratives diverge from contemporaneous travel books by male authors. Overall, the article seeks to contribute to the intersection of travel studies and gender by asking how German women writers and travelers participated in the emergence of tourism and helped shape its infrastructure.5

Baumgartner: Packaging the Grand Tour 3

Italy and Her Travelers

For more than two hundred years, Italy was a favorite travel destination for thousands of British, French, and German men. Already by the eigh-teenth century, Italy had become an overdetermined destination with a well- developed touristic infrastructure.6 Young British aristocrats had visited the country on their Grand Tour, and many published their experi-ences later in life. In the German- language context alone, more than 140 travel narratives were published between 1750 and 1870 that not only described Italy but also included side trips to the newly discovered city of Pompeii, the Vesuvius volcano, and Sicily.7 German periodicals fre-quently published travel reports from abroad, and an entire journal, Ital-ien und Deutschland in Rücksicht auf Sitten, Gebräuche, Litteratur und Kunst (Italy and Germany in regard to customs, literature, and art) was dedicated to the relationship between Italy and Germany.8 Once Goethe published his Italian Journey in 1829, travelers to Italy began to orient themselves on Goethe’s itinerary and his subjective perception of land-scape and antiquities— so much so that works critical of Goethe’s Italian Journey began to appear almost immediately. In 1835, Gustav Nicolai published his Italien wie es wirklich ist (Italy truly rendered), in which he asserted that the classical reception of Italy in Goethe’s footsteps had already become a stereotype:

A work about Italy! “Once again somebody has the presumption to torture us with his individual view of wondrous Italy, a country that has been praised ad nauseam?” This is the question I hear every-where. You are wrong, esteemed readers, I want to warn you about this enchanted land.9

In his diatribe, Nicolai blamed both Goethe and the Romantics for a presentation of Italy so idealized that it necessarily would lead to dis-appointment among later travelers (1: 5– 7). He mockingly suggested to his readers that the many glowing travel reports about Italy were written solely for the purpose of recouping travel cost.

In 1840, August Lewald, cousin and mentor of Fanny Lewald, pub-lished his own travel report from Italy as a counterattack. Yet he too chose to forgo the classical travel narrative à la Goethe with its slavish loyalty to the sights of antiquity. For his own report, he promised to pro-vide practical information in the footsteps of Mariana Starke, who, in 1800, had written the most popular British travel guide about Italy (vi–


vii).10 Ernst Förster, a Munich- based painter, also published a practical travel guide to Italy, promising his readers all the important information in condensed form (vii). In order to be published in this oversaturated and commercialized market, we may assume that women’s travel reports from Italy responded to a particular need for travel advice.

Women’s travel narratives were thus part of a large- scale shift in the purpose and scope of the genre. Around 1800 the comprehensive apo-demic and encyclopedic travel handbooks from before were being dis-placed by travel narratives that foregrounded the individual and his or her subjective experiences, thoughts, and perceptions of the journey. All authors around 1800 and thereafter, I have argued elsewhere, found ways to edit their travel narratives by forgoing the presentation of informa-tional facts, which were the purpose of earlier journeys, for a carefully truncated narrative that was grounded in subjective perception (“Trav-el” 180). The travel books chosen for this study reached audiences that extended beyond the learned circles of Berlin, Dresden, Copenhagen/Hamburg, and Vienna, and the authors— in particular Fanny Lewald— had to think about the commercial viability of the writings, on the one hand, and the specifi c readers for whom the narratives were intended, on the other. In other words, the travel narratives considered here were pro-fessional endeavors written by career authors for a specifi cally targeted audience. The four writers understood clearly that they operated with-in well- established travel conventions that had been determined by male travel writers. They also understood that their travel reports could not ri-val male reports in terms of scope (i.e., what could be seen) and in terms of narrative innovation. And, indeed, the charge of being derivative— “epigonal”— was hurled at each of the authors. Yet the authors also un-derstood clearly that they were writing for a new breed of traveler wait-ing in the wings— the reviled “traveller in skirts.”11

Friederike Brun, Elisa von der Recke, Therese von Artner, and Fan-ny Lewald were all accomplished writers when they undertook their journeys to Italy, and their fame aided in their access to the publication market. Each belonged to the far- fl ung German middle classes or lower aristocracy, each was fi nancially stable when she traveled to Italy, and each traveled outside of traditional marriage.12 My earliest example, the German- Danish writer and salonière Friederike Brun, traveled between 1791 and 1810 to Germany, Switzerland, France, and Italy.13 These years included long sojourns in Switzerland, Rome, and Naples. In addition to many volumes of poetry, Brun published over ten volumes of trav-


el memoirs and letters that were well respected, according to her edi-tor Karl A. Böttiger.14 Elisa von der Recke, the sister of the Duchess of Courland and a pietist writer living in Dresden, traveled between 1804 and 1806, for the most part following the itinerary of the Grand Tour with side trips to Ischia and Capri.15 Her travel narrative was not pub-lished until 1814, after Napoleon was fi nally defeated and Italy reopened for tourism. Therese von Artner, an Austro- Hungarian aristocrat and poet, who published under the pseudonym Theone, traveled from Zagreb in Croatia to Venice and Vicenza in 1826. Her travel narrative appeared posthumously in 1829. Fanny Lewald followed the route of the Grand Tour in 1845– 46 and published her Italienisches Bilderbuch (Italian pic-ture book) in 1847.16 Brun and Recke identifi ed themselves as Protestant northerners, as did Lewald, although she had converted from Judaism. In contrast, Artner traveled as a Catholic Habsburg subject. Brun traveled as a married woman with one or another of her four children and accompa-nied by her good friend and lover Karl Viktor von Bonstetten. Recke was divorced but traveled with her companion Christoph August Tiedge. Art-ner was unmarried and journeyed to Italy with members of her sister’s family, while Lewald, also unmarried, traveled to Italy with an unnamed female companion.17

The need to fi nd a rationale for undertaking such a long, strenuous, and expensive journey framed all travel in the nineteenth century. Goethe famously justifi ed his trip with the need to explore his subjectivity by means of the landmarks Italy offered: “I was making this remarkable journey not to deceive myself but to become acquainted with myself through objects” (41).18 Giving a reason for travel was more problematic for women, and health was often cited. This is true for Brun and Recke, who both claimed that they were traveling to cure their various ailments, although both were healthy enough to ascend the Vesuvius volcano— in Recke’s case three times.19 In the 1820s, health as a rationale was aban-doned, and Artner and Lewald simply celebrated their good fortune of being able to travel to Italy. Artner, for example, thematized the siren call of the Hesperides and confessed that traveling to Italy was a life-long dream of hers (95). Although she mentions her fragile health, be-ing cured was not the explicit goal, and she eventually returned home in worse shape than when she left. The trope of health is entirely absent in Lewald’s narrative. Instead, she focuses on what she calls the unique northern longing for Italy (5). The author cursorily refers to her improved circumstances— it is left unsaid whether this improvement is related to fi -


nances or autonomy— and describes the decision- making process in one short, passive sentence: “A peaceful campaign toward Rome was decid-ed.”20 Lewald’s travel narrative shows that, by the 1840s, travel had be-come normalized, at least for women of means who had the funds to pay for their journeys.

Travel Literature and Authenticity

Around 1800, subjective perception became more prevalent in travel nar-ratives. Above, I claimed that travel narratives around 1800 had given up the pretense of describing all that could be seen objectively for a carefully edited text that was structured around the traveler’s subjectivity. And in-deed, each author considered here was well versed in the genre conven-tions of subjective writing— autobiography and poetry— and the literary hide- and- seek between author, narrator, and protagonist.21 Brun and Recke had already written autobiographical accounts of their lives; Lewald had based her earlier novels on confl icts she had experienced herself; and Artner was an accomplished poet. Yet the narratologist Ansgar Nünning cautions that it is not possible to ascribe a simple aesthetics of authentic subjectivity to travel reports. Instead, he calls these reports the last refuge of the illusionary assumption that experience and text can be congruent (12). Invoking Hayden White and Paul Ricoeur, Nünning recommends that scholars of travel literature look for theoretical models in autobiography where the fi rst- person narrator is routinely distinguished from the expe-riencing subject and the author (24– 25). In a similar vein, he asserts that travel reports are not accurate representations of the travels taken, even if they feel “subjective” to the reader. While readers may have the sense that they are reading an author’s subjective and authentic perception of a landmark, Nünning insists that these encounters are principally mediated by genre and travel conventions. This means that travel reports and trav-el modalities are prefi gured by their cultural context (i.e., the sequence of the journey), that they are confi gured through narrative devices (i.e., fi rst- person narratives, chronological structure), and that they engage in reconfi guring the meaning of travel (as did Goethe’s Italian Journey).

Nünning’s point is evident in the few well- worn patterns that existed to present Italy in travel narratives, both fi ctional and autobiographical. More often than not, Italy was presented as female, as in Madame de Staël’s Corinne or in Starke’s Letters from Italy. Within the German con-text, Italy was juxtaposed to England (Archenholz) or France (Heine) in


terms of social and political advancement (Zürn 25). Other travel narra-tives about Italy, in particular after Winckelmann published his Refl ec-tions on the Imitation of Greek Works in Painting and Sculpture (Gedan-ken über die Nachahmung der griechischen Werke in der Malerei und Bildhauerkunst) in 1755, focused on antiquity and classicism, although this approach had fallen out of favor by the 1820s (Bödeker 204). A fourth strand focused on Renaissance art, specifi cally on the paintings and architectural achievements of Raphael, Michelangelo, and Cara-vaggio. An approach particularly productive for painters such as Claude Lorrain was through landscape and the search for the sublime. These preexisting approaches structured the ways in which Italy was seen in the German context. Yet the gap— Nünning calls it an “insurmountable abyss” (21)— between experience and text also allows for space within which to play with genre expectations. Brun, for example, concentrated on the beauty of the landscape while venturing into territory that was un-safe and uninhabitable for a woman of her status. Recke adopted Winck-elmann’s approach but adapted it to an audience of young, female read-ers. Both Artner and Lewald embraced Goethe’s claim that only what interested him was interesting. Thereby, all four authors subverted the expected and found ways to portray Italy in order to make it possible for their readers to imagine themselves on the road south.

From Autobiography to Journalism

In the course of the early nineteenth century, the style of presentation changed signifi cantly as women’s travel reports moved from the autobi-ographical and epistolary to the journalistic. This means that earlier travel narratives followed the route of the Grand Tour and described the sights visited sequentially to a discernible addressee in the text, which Nün-ning calls “realistic travel reports” (27). This strategy allows the reader to imagine herself on the journey alongside the narrator. As women grew in confi dence, their voices became both less intimate and more self- assured. The imperative to see the obligatory sights of the tour and to validate these with personal observation gave way to an episodic approach to viewing sights based on personal interest. The addressee disappeared and with it the intimate relationship between narrator and addressee, which was re-placed with a style that took its cue from journalism. As becomes evident in Lewald’s writing, chronological descriptions of sights and places were replaced with stories about these sights.22


In keeping with the initial impulse to personalize travel narratives, Brun organized her reports either as letters to friends and family or as travel diaries. An accomplished poet and letter writer, she employed the fi ctions of intimacy and authenticity common in epistolary writing (Hoff 222, 240). Her narratives make use of the entire register of sentimental-ity: highly emotional language, declarations of love and loss, an intense focus on the absent “you,” and the creation of an intimate bond between writer and reader. The route of the Grand Tour is easily discernible to Brun’s readers, and the letters and diaries describe the most interesting and expected vantage points of the Grand Tour sequentially. These in-clude scenery, vistas, sights such as St. Peter’s Basilica, and antiquities. A date and place anchors each letter geographically so that the reader can follow along on Brun’s route.23 Although her language implies subjec-tivity, Brun sees what others have seen before her and does not question the prescriptive sights of the Grand Tour (as did Goethe, e.g.), thereby remaining within the constraints of classical travel writing. For example, in her Prosaische Schriften (Prose writings) of 1800, her literary diary about Rome, she does not particularly like the architecture of St. Peter’s Basilica but cannot yet formulate why she disagrees with other travel writers and experts:

The doors of the St. Peter’s Basilica always impressed me as pure decoration. My eye felt an indeterminate sense of dissatisfaction when looking upon the cluttered statues on the fl at roof of the colonnade and the spacing of the columns in relationship to their thickness and this must be the cause [for her dissatisfaction] that I can’t quite explain to myself.24

While Goethe clearly expresses boredom and exhaustion with prescrip-tive sights in his Italian Journey, published sixteen years later, Brun is not yet able to free her judgment from those who have gone before her.

Recke also follows the route of the Grand Tour. Her travel report, like Brun’s, is structured along the coordinates of dates and places, steadi-ly progressing south toward Rome. The topics within each chapter (i.e., churches, ruins, artwork) are listed according to an internal classifi cation system explained to the reader in some detail. Recke chooses a geographic approach to sights. In Rome she meticulously works her way through the seven Roman hills before continuing on to outlying neighborhoods. Her language is sober and educational, in tune with her stated desire to offer a historical guidebook for young ladies interested in Roman history: “My


comments are dedicated to persons of my own gender, who, like myself, lack classical learning yet carry in their souls an appreciation for antiquity and its history.”25 In contrast to Brun, there is no longer a discernible ad-dressee, and the text is monologic in structure, giving a detailed account of the sights she visited. The extensive table of contents— four pages in the second volume— gives the reader a precise index of the individual landmarks and emphasizes the book’s intended use as a desk reference.

Geographic structure is maintained in Artner’s narrative, but she omits dates and, by doing so, the fi ction that the narrative was composed while she traveled. Within each geographic location, the narrator follows a loose itinerary of sights, guided by her own interests, which she foregrounds:

Don’t expect details about [Venice], because I’m not inclined to copy from other travelers or substitute a travel guide’s judgment for my own. I will report only what I saw and how I saw it, and there-fore you can expect few [things], but at least no imitation.26

This results in a highly subjective collage of impressions, facts, and de-scriptions. Although Artner explains at the beginning that her idiosyncratic tour is the result of her personal circumstances— she had no control over the itinerary— she clearly embraces the narrative opportunities offered by eschewing the traditional route and landmarks of the Grand Tour. Since many of the sights on her route are less well known, she has the liberty of establishing her own canon. The language of her narrative is conversation-al and factual without the emotionality present in Brun’s texts.

Fanny Lewald’s title Bilderbuch (Picture book) emphasizes the visu-al aspects of her journey. The narrative includes no dates, and the text is structured according to locations— Milan, Florence, and so forth. The main chapters are subdivided according to a wide range of topics, includ-ing famous sights, cultural information, and curiosities.27 While Lewald’s travel book no longer resembles a description of the Grand Tour, the tradi-tional itinerary shines through, since the cities she visits were mostly part of the Grand Tour. Like Artner and Recke before her, Lewald gives up the pretense of writing to an addressee, and the text has a monologic, episod-ic structure, describing only what she chooses to notice. The language is lively and engaging, thus giving her readers the overall impression that the purpose of a visit to Italy is no longer educational alone; rather, enjoyment and pleasure have become adequate reasons for traveling.

Overall, these four travel narratives show that women were keenly aware of the conventions of travel writing. In each instance, the mode


chosen refl ects narrative developments present in German and interna-tional travel writing. Yet each author also enthusiastically embraced the possibilities of going “off the beaten path” and of picking and choosing what to see in order to present her readers with a narrative journey that is unique and will stand out in a crowded literary market.

Readers/Travelers

Each of the travel texts engages with its implied reader, and this reader gives us an inkling about future travelers envisioned by the authors. In Brun’s letters and travel diary, for example, the actual reader is given an intimate look at Brun’s life in Italy. References to shared experienc-es and earlier trips allow the reader to imagine herself at Brun’s side, seeing what Brun sees. As her editor Böttiger notes, Brun paints with words, and the overall impression of the travel letters is visual (Epi-soden aus Reisen durch das untere Italien 4: xi). Although she visited all of the famous archaeological sites and was knowledgeable about antiq-uity, her descriptions remain focused on visual enjoyment.28 The reader, like many of Brun’s addressees, is thus perhaps envisioned as one with-out the scholarly knowledge necessary to understand and appreciate the historical sights Italy offers. Furthermore, the vistas that Brun describes have the distinct feel of a sketch or an etching, which were much in circulation in the nineteenth century. Thus, text and visuals form a com-prehensive and harmonious whole that can be enjoyed by those who will never travel.

In contrast to Brun, Recke clearly envisions younger female readers hungry for knowledge about history and antiquity. Recke’s editor Bötti-ger wrote:

As readers of her travel diary, our author imagined younger readers of her own gender, who, in their educated circles, have heard of the enchanted land beyond the Alps, where everybody travels to see the lemon blossoms. These readers are fi lled with a commendable curiosity for what they are lacking in knowledge about the origin of all new European culture and they desire to be guided by an experi-enced and judicious leader.29

Here Böttiger is commenting on a new generation of women who are reading Recke’s travel book in the hope that perhaps one day they will be able to travel to Italy. The text is supplemented with a large number


of explanatory footnotes, which turn the travel report into a compendium for readers interested in Roman history.

The intended reader of Artner’s travel narrative is her friend Karoline Pichler, to whom the book is dedicated. One might thus assume that the implied reader is female. However, Pichler soon recedes into the back-ground, as Artner supplies statistical information and metrics that mea-sure the economic potential of each city she visits. The implied reader of the travel book emerges as one who is interested in and in need of such information (95, 113). This indicates that Artner’s intended readership is no longer just women; rather, she writes for a mixed- gender audience that is hungry for information about travel destinations beyond the scope of the Grand Tour.

Lewald seems to imagine an undefi ned “man” who is a northern lover of Italy as her reader (5). The text creates commonality between narrator and reader by referring to commonly held stereotypes— such as the lack of punctuality in Italy or the dismal state of Italian inns— which indicates a reader who has read other travel reports about Italy and is familiar with such complaints. Consequently, there is no more need for Lewald to re-port everything she sees. The intended reader of Lewald’s text is an edu-cated man or woman, indicated by Lewald’s need to label certain obser-vations as “feminine,” as she does in Milan: “If I might use an image that suggests itself to a women, I would say that the dome in Milan looks like an enormous, delicate lace netting.”30 The many references to Goethe in Lewald’s text imply that the reader has read a large corpus of Goethe and is familiar with German theater, and her allusions to Napoleon and to Ita-ly’s political situation presuppose a reader familiar with and interested in contemporary liberal politics.

Infrastructural advice is of utmost importance for a reader planning a trip. The traditional apodemic travel handbooks had rendered this service by providing advice such as where to stay in Rome. While men often traveled incognito, as Goethe did— walking part of the route and ventur-ing into the unknown— safety, privacy, and modesty were real concerns for women. For this reason, female authors gave their readers a wealth of tangible information, thereby allowing readers to judge whether a trip to Italy was even feasible. For example, the maligned vetturino— a cross between a multilingual travel guide, tour operator, and driver— was viewed positively by these authors, as he provided both guidance and protection to traveling women.31

Brun frequently incorporates information about the quality of lodging,


food, and the ever- present fl ea infestation in her reports. About Rome she writes: “To move into an apartment in Rome and around Rome is unpleasant for those of us used to northern cleanliness, because it is im-possible to fi nd rooms adequate for the most modest standards in this regard.”32 Traveling to Subjaco (a small mountain village about eighty kilometers east of Rome) gives her occasion to describe Italy as an exotic and wild place entirely lacking in infrastructure for tourists, which thus forces Brun and her friends to “rough it” in a hovel without heat, privacy, and other bourgeois comforts (Römisches Leben 46). While Brun never expresses fear for her own safety, she notes that the invading French had raped and pillaged entire villages and left the inhabitants of these war- ravaged regions without the means to provide for the comfort of travelers (Römisches Leben 55, 65– 67). Thus, the Italy that emerges in these pag-es is not a destination suitable for female travelers who might be better advised, one presumes, to enjoy Brun’s descriptions in the safety of their own homes.

Recke’s descriptions of the Italian infrastructure are more positive, and she includes current prices for services (always a staple of apodemic travel handbooks). In Verona, she reports:

Tomorrow our journey continues to Venice. We have hired a vet-turino who will convey us there and back in two coaches with four horses and who will arrange for our group’s (consisting of six persons) meals. He will also arrange for the vehicles to take us to Venice on the Brenta Canal: he will render these services for forty Dutch ducats.33

Like Brun, she comments on beggars and fl eas, often mentioning them in the same sentence (1: 143). She frequently speaks of the good quality of Italian food and the care afforded to her group by the vetturino:

Vetturini are often vilifi ed; I have never been treated as well by German drivers as I have been treated by the two vetturini we have had up until now. Actually, traveling through Italy is indefi nitely easier and more pleasant than traveling in Germany: the roads are superb; those traveling with the post [coach] are quickly served and cleared in the post stations.34

Although Recke includes reports of crime and murder, in particular when describing her travels through papal lands, she stresses how safe she feels in her vetturino’s care. Her text shows that Italy has become manageable


for a female traveler who prepares herself well for her journey and trav-els in a group under the guidance of a vetturino. Unlike Brun, who avoids reporting fi nancial transactions, Recke lets her audience know how much things in Italy cost, thereby insinuating that she was paying for the trip with her own funds.

A decade later, Artner’s travel narrative is full of fi nancial advice and information about infrastructure for future travelers. On her trip from Trieste to Venice, she writes:

The journey between Trieste and Venice on the steamer has been under way for several years and is so popular that there are now three ships that cross almost daily. While the price is high— women pay ten, men nine, and servants six fl orins— , numerous passengers use the steamers.35

She carefully describes the food on hand, how the Italian cuisine uses oil instead of butter, how much meat is available, and how much she is charged for lunch (135). Like Recke before her and Lewald after her, Artner notes the excellent and effi cient transportation system in Italy and comments that this system allows tourists to cross areas not perceived as interesting in minimal time (179– 81). Overall, Artner describes travel in Italy as built on an effi cient and interlocking system of rapid transporta-tion, comfortable accommodation, and tolerable food. There is no mention of sexual hazards for the female traveler as in Brun’s travel book; on the contrary, Artner reports how the cicisbei system— a symbol of sexual licentiousness— had almost completely disappeared in northern Italy. The female traveler can now safely cross large distances in Italy, reside in comfort along the way, and plan on a reasonable budget for her journey. While travel continues to be more expensive for women (because of the many additional services needed), these expenses are no longer exorbitant.

Travel in the 1840s was supported by an even larger network of trans-portation, lodging, and food options, and Lewald describes the services offered by the local vetturini:

Our vetturino promised to convey us to Genua within three days, and although this seemed slow to us who are used to traveling by steam coach, it is nevertheless a pleasant type of travel for Ita-ly, if there is a group of four people in the coach who know each other. Lunch— pranzo— and dinner— cena, which is served at six o’clock— are part of the cost of the journey. Almost everywhere,


the vetturini stopped at the best hotels; the rooms are not as clean as in the best German hotels, but just as clean and much better ap-pointed than the hotels in the small towns of Eastern and Western Prussia and Westphalia. Carpets covered the brick fl oors in many places, the giant beds were clean and often supplied with mosquito netting, the meals were healthy and plentiful, and the vetturino took care of all this. He also watched the luggage, which by night was left on top of the stagecoach in the depot.36

Lewald includes information on renting rooms and where to fi nd food and how to do all of this on a budget. She devotes an entire chapter (“Häusliche Einrichtungen” [Domestic arrangements]) to the procure-ment of an apartment in Rome, including what to expect and how to fi nd and pay for groceries, laundry, and heat (114– 18). She addresses safety, petty theft, and mobility within the city, and thus shows her readers how affordable and safe Italy is for the female traveler.

In the course of four decades, the imagined reader of these travel re-ports changes from an armchair traveler at home to an active woman out and about in the streets of Rome. At the end of the eighteenth centu-ry, Brun writes for women who have not traveled to Italy and probably never will; the high level of specifi city in the descriptions of landscape aids these readers in their imaginary travels. In contrast, Recke’s narra-tive holds out the possibility that the young readers of her book might travel to Italy in the future. By 1829, when Artner’s travel narrative ap-pears, the reader is no longer imagined as exclusively female, informa-tion about Italy is plentiful, and sights do not surprise any longer. Indeed, upon seeing Venice, a laconic Artner writes:

I couldn’t say that the prospect of Venice surprised me. There are so many etchings [of Venice] in circulation, and news of its particulars is plentiful so much so that I had an accurate image of the city in my mind. Furthermore, the total impression [of Venice] is not pleasant.37

She is cognizant of the cost of the journey and assumes that her female readers might also be able to fi nance such a journey. Eighteen years later, writing in 1847, Lewald too mentions expected travel expenses in her book and thereby envisions an audience that knows Italy well and quite possibly might travel there. The traveler in Lewald’s narrative pays for her own journey and moves freely around the Italian peninsula. Lewald’s travel book shows that a journey to Italy is a pleasurable en-


counter with a highly developed tourist infrastructure that is welcoming to the female traveler.

Italy through Women’s Eyes

At the outset of this article, I asked what contributions these four authors made to the body of German knowledge about Italy. If we are to accept Nünning’s claims that travel reports, guides, and memoirs must be con-sidered products of and contributions to the cultural memory of a nation (16– 17), then pre- formed cultural patterns affect individual experiences (i.e., how sights are to be seen). Furthermore, textual representations of these experiences reconfi gure how travel and sights are understood by both readers and writers. How, then, did women’s travel reports of Italy change— or confi rm— the German perception of Italy? Overall, we see a shift from viewing Italy from a distance— from a coach window, for exam-ple (Pelz 151)— to an encounter at eye level and on the street. At the same time, narrative totality is abandoned for particulars, and these particulars are emphatically embraced as an expression of the author’s subjectivity. Brun’s writing exemplifi es this point, since she still employed the tradi-tional mode of the panorama to view— and then describe— landscapes (Jost 77). The panorama allows for scopic control over the object of the gaze and usually promises totality and objectivity, which were considered necessary for aesthetic refl ection (Jost 305).38 Brun’s highly emotive lan-guage and the inclusion of subjective detail suggest, however, that she is departing from this model in interesting ways. Distance is given up for immersion in the landscape, and readers are offered two distinct views of the same landscape:

The prospect of the beautiful city of Sujaco was wonderful. It was built up the mountain, surrounded by green rock terraces, towered over by the wild Mount Calvo and surrounded by the river Anio that was fl owing rapidly toward the bridge at our feet. First, we viewed the image through the spring rain, afterwards glowing in the sinking afternoon sun.39

Brun not only places herself into the landscape but presents the relation-ship between the seeing subject and landscape as one of reciprocity rather than scopic control. She animates the landscape through the use of active verbs: “To the left, the apennine limestone range with its sharp ridge and blue- red tinting climbs up. Closer [to us] the three Monticelli mountains


step forward.”40 Furthermore, Brun insists that because the landscape is ever changing it must be seen several times, thereby moving away from the traditional two- dimensional view. She describes not only an active, living landscape but also herself in communion with it— “I screamed, because [my] delight was too much”— thus modeling for her readers how Italy and its landscape should be consumed.41

Recke also offers her readers totality, albeit not of the visual kind.42 She asserts that she mostly is drawn to sights with historical signifi cance; accordingly, she describes landscape only as it pertains to historical events. In effect, she tightly connects geographic and historical places: “I am interested mostly in classical art because it acquaints me with the spir-it of antiquity.”43 Recke includes statistical information, measurements, and exact descriptions of materials and construction methods, providing readers with a precise visual image of what the ruins looked like in 1804 and 1805 (1: 92). Similarly, she records emotions only as they pertain to the history of the place: “The confl uence of antique and modern Rome awakens melancholy sentiments, which are heightened even more by the beauty of the new buildings.”44 Her highest emotional response comes when she has the opportunity to see various historical periods lined up in one panoramic scene:

But how was I satisfi ed, surprised, and delighted when coming upon the sweeping vista. The near and far objects were casting such a spell that common words failed me. Here before me was the venerable Rome! Her famous river and her silent ruins! The magnifi cent modern dome of St. Peter and the ancient Pantheon, Hadrian’s monument; and beyond [was] the green Villa Medici.45

This vantage point allows the narrator to capture Rome geographically and temporally. Her gaze ties together ancient, Renaissance, and con-temporary Rome; each period is anchored to the Tiber River, which represents eternal nature. However, while the detail included in Recke’s account is staggering, when she organized her notes in 1814 she was cognizant that Italy’s sights/sites had been described exhaustively. Con-sequently, she could write: “I will visit this temple and admire [it] quiet-ly, lingering every now and then at an exquisite work of art. My modest remarks will record only those impressions that captured my emotions and left me with treasured sentiments.”46 This gives her readers the op-portunity to pick and choose among the descriptions in her book that are most useful and interesting to them.


By 1829 the obligation to report everything had dissipated, and ac-cordingly, Artner may claim that every travel narrative describes the writer rather than the sight:

In general, this country has been described by so many brilliant vis-itors that every knowledgeable reader has formed his or her own impressions. Everything has been illuminated from every angle so that nothing new can be said about [Italy]. Yet those thinking for themselves have their own points of view and see with their own eyes and, given the multitude of impressions, can add something not previously noticed.47

Her focus is distributed equally on landscape, antiquity, Renaissance art, and Italian life, with large portions of her travel narrative devoted to statistics, metrics, and practical information for future travelers. Most noteworthy about Artner’s narrative are her extended refl ections on tour-ism, which add a second layer to her text. In Venice, for example, she notes: “People wander the city as if drunk, anesthetized and exhausted by so much dazzle.”48 Not only does she acknowledge the traveler’s fa-tigue, but she also points repeatedly to the fact that the famous cities of Italy such as Venice and Vincenza are overdetermined in travelers’ minds, since prescriptive images have been circulating for decades and most people are familiar with the sites/sights through these images. The traveler’s exploration of famed landmarks, Artner notes, is no longer a journey into the unknown, but rather a journey to confi rm and check off the expected.

Lewald’s motto for the journey is “enjoyment,” and she decidedly re-jects the notion that travelers must see it all:

In general, the fl ock of tourists can be divided into two classes: those who travel to see everything and those who travel in order to enjoy. The latter absolutely excludes “seeing a lot.” There is noth-ing more painful than absorbing a multitude of foreign impressions when in a hurry, and this is the reason why the fi rst days in a new city are generally not enjoyable, if not outright disagreeable.49

Visual and narrative totality is replaced with individuality; the selection is no longer determined by the itinerary of the Grand Tour and its famous landmarks, but by the traveler’s interests. At the same time, Lewald moves the observer closer to the sights, and teaches her readers how to encounter Italy at street level.50 Panoramic descriptions are abandoned in


favor of particulars. In concrete terms, this means that sweeping vistas have been replaced by description of the seafood market and festivals, along with anecdotes from the various hotels she visits. The same is true for descriptions of antiquity. As Christina Ujma notes, Lewald, like many other traveling women, eschewed the sites of antiquity for sights denot-ing contemporary Italy, thereby presenting a radical modern view of soci-ety (“Rom– Paris– London” 208– 09).51 Overall, sights now serve as inspi-rations for stories about contemporary Italian culture, allowing readers to fi ll pre- formed visuals with narrative life.52 Like Artner, Lewald displays remarkable confi dence in her ability to select sights worthy of readerly enjoyment. She focuses on her own impressions, judging them against her expectations, as, for example, when she describes her disappointment upon seeing the Venus de’ Medici. She ridicules other tourists, partic-ularly the British, who slavishly adhere to their guidebook’s judgment (F. Lewald 75– 76). Lewald’s travel narrative privileges individuality in perception and frees the German traveler from earlier prescriptive pat-terns of visual enjoyment. She moves the tourist into the city and into the streets, where she can partake in— rather than just observe— life in Italy.

Conclusion

This cross- section of women’s travel texts from the fi rst half of the nine-teenth century reveals a number of things, perhaps most importantly that, during this period, travel became a reality for bourgeois women. While it had taken bourgeois men almost two hundred years to usurp this privilege of the aristocracy, the normalization of travel happened for women within fi fty years. This points to the nascent development of mass tourism (orga-nized package tours) and rapid (and safe) transportation options. Within the same time period, women’s texts moved from niche market to main-stream. Brun’s and Recke’s texts were still geared toward female readers (although both were certainly read by men and women), while already by 1829, Artner gave up the pretense of writing for women alone, and Lewald’s travel book addressed a mixed- gender audience. This trajectory shows that women became expert travelers and successful travel writers and that their travel books sold to large audiences. As readers became more familiar with Italy, writers were free to move away from represent-ing the expected to depicting carefully selected sights and experiences that expressed their individuality. At the same time, knowledge acquisition and edifi cation lost importance, and pleasure became the primary reason


for undertaking travel. Both developments allowed women at home to imagine themselves on this journey. During this period, women travelers also grew more confi dent and self- assured and abandoned the pretense of health for undertaking a journey to Italy, which in turn allowed healthy young women to dream about traveling. By 1847, on the cusp of modern mass tourism, the parameters of traveling for enjoyment were essentially set, and Lewald’s Italienisches Bilderbuch offered readers a blueprint for an entirely modern touristic experience that would not be out of place in a modern travel guide. Tracing women’s travel writing from 1791 to 1847 confi rms that modern tourism came into existence through the writings of female pioneers who taught their audiences at home that Italy could be seen effi ciently, safely, and enjoyably. Neither Goethe nor Winckelmann can thus be considered to have set the only course for how Italy would be seen by later generations; rather, modern tourism, with its emphasis on street life, authentic experiences, and a measure of culture, stands indebt-ed to the fundamental cultural and narrative achievements introduced by women authors.

karin baumgartner is associate professor of German at the University of Utah. She earned her PhD at Washington University. Baumgartner has published extensively on the early nineteenth century, in particular, on the political writings of German women, issues of masculinity and nationhood, early travel literature, and German- French literary relations. She is the author of Public Voices: Political Discourse in the Writings of Caroline de la Motte Fouqué (2009) and coeditor of From Multiculturalism to Cultural Hybridity: New Approaches to Teaching Modern Switzerland (2010). Her article “‘Ich kam unter die Schweizer’: Teaching Switzerland as a Multi- Ethnic Society,” in Die Unterrichtspraxis/Teaching German, won that jour-nal’s best- article award in 2013. Currently, she is working on a monograph, “Mapping the Nation: German Travel Guides, 1789 to 1871,” an excerpt of which appeared in Publications of the English Goethe Society (2014).

Notes

1. Jezek claims that around 1800, 4.5 percent of all books published were travel narratives, and that this number increased exponentially in the nineteenth century (707– 08, 722– 28).

2. See my article comparing Goethe’s Italian Journey (1816– 17, 1829) with the British writer Mariana Starke’s Letters from Italy (1800), where I argue that both jour-neys (and their descriptions) followed similar conventions of travel writing, except


that Goethe came to be seen as the father of travel literature, while Starke’s account gave birth to the Murray travel guide. Also see Dann and Pratt.

3. This term by Pelz refers to her observation that early women travelers viewed the foreign landscape or country from the safety of their coaches (78).

4. Around 1800 mass travel was in its infancy, but by 1846 we see a well- developed genre of travel writing (reports, guides, essays) about the European continent, with many women contributing to the genre. By midcentury, as railway travel became more common for long- distance transportation, the foundations of mass tourism had been established (e.g., package tours, shorter stays, rapid long- distance movement, more diverse travelers).

5. See Ohnesorg’s groundbreaking study for a discussion of women’s travel to far- fl ung places like the Orient. See Pratt for the confl uence of travel writing, scientifi c exploration, and colonialism.

6. Touristic infrastructure consisted of an interconnected transportation and hospi-tality network made intelligible by local guides who often spoke foreign languages. Tourists were aided by extensive travel guide books that advised travelers what to see and where to stay.

7. Fitzon specifi cally counted travel reports that included a side trip to the ruins of Pompeii, which were only discovered in 1748. Also see Brilli’s list of famous travel narratives from Italy (304– 11). Sedlarz (with reference to Wolfgang Griep) mentions that between 1780 and 1809 roughly four hundred hardcover books appeared that had “Reise” in their title (67).

8. Italien und Deutschland, by Hirt and Moritz (1789– 91), consisted mostly of their own writings from Rome, including fi ctional letters from Italy, descriptions of antiquities and paintings, and historical and archaeological information.

9. “Ein Werk über Italien! ‘Hat schon wieder Jemand die Anmaßung, uns mit sein-er individuellen Ansicht über das bis zum Ekel gepriesene Wunderland zu quälen?’ Also hör’ ich von allen Seiten fragen. Ihr irrt, sehr werthe Leser; ich will Euch warnen vor dem Wunderlande!” (Nicolai 1: 1). All translations are my own unless otherwise noted.

10. Starke’s successful travel guide, Letters from Italy, appeared in two volumes in 1800. It was reprinted numerous times and infl uenced John Murray’s famous travel guide A Hand- Book for Travellers on the Continent (1836) and the Karl Baedeker travel handbooks in Germany (see Dann 163). For Starke, see Moskal (151– 52) and Walchester (chapter 2).

11. See the often cited article “To the Royal Geographic Society” in Punch:A Lady an explorer? a traveller in skirts?The notions just a trifl e too seraphic:Let them stay and mind the babies, or mend our ragged shirts;But they mustn’t, can’t, and shan’t be geographic.

12. Lewald was thirty- four when she traveled but was considered an old maid by her family (Ujma, Fanny Lewalds ubanes Arkadien 155, 161). Brun was married but she traveled with her lover until her husband threatened divorce in 1807 and forced her return to Copenhagen in 1810 (Walser- Wilhlem et al. 25– 26; Powers 30).


13. See Powers 28– 29 for more on Brun’s itinerary.14. Böttiger wrote an extensive introduction to the fourth volume of Brun’s Epi-

soden aus Reisen durch das untere Italien (4: ix– xvi; the reference is to page ix).15. Von der Recke had become famous as the author of Nachricht von des

berüchtigten Cagliostro Aufenthalt in Mitau im Jahre 1779 und dessen magischen Operationen (1787).

16. This journey was the fi rst of several trips to Italy. See Ujma’s Fanny Lewalds urbanes Arkadien, where she lists and analyzes the various trips to Italy.

17. In Rome, Lewald met, fell in love, and had a passionate affair with Adolf Stahr, not present in Italienisches Bilderbuch, although the later Römisches Tagebuch (1865, published 1927) was revealing about their time together (Ujma, Fanny Lewalds ur-banes Arkadien 162– 70).

18. Goethe made this comment toward the beginning of his journey, in Verona, on 17 September 1786 (41).

19. Brun, Episoden aus Reisen durch das untere Italien 4: iii; Recke 1: x, 2: 277.20. “Der friedliche Römerzug wurde beschlossen” (F. Lewald 6).21. See Müller 26– 32, 37– 40.22. It is diffi cult to translate the German term Sehenswürdigkeit into English.

“Landmark” or “place of interest” or even “site” connotes a geographical component but fails to convey the sense that these landmarks are seen and then narrated, in effect constructed, in travel reports. The English term sight conveys the visual experience but not the materiality of the landmark or object. In the following I use the term sight to denote a visual construction of a landmark or landscape that can be put into words.

23. In Episoden aus Reisen durch das untere Italien, Brun’s editor Böttiger lists all of her travel narratives in chronological order with reference to place and date published (4: xiii– xiv).

24. “Diesen Eindruck von nur Dekorazion hat mir dieser Zugang zur Peters- Kirche immer und immer wieder aufs neue gemacht. Die überhäufte Menge der Statuen auf dem fl achen Dache des Säulenganges, und ein ich weiß nicht was von Unbefriedigt-seyn, welches mein Auge immer im Verhältniß der Säulendicke zu ihrem Intervall empfand, mag wohl die mir selbst halb unbekannte unentwickelte Ursache hievon seyn” (Brun, Prosaische Schriften 19).

25. “Was meine Bemerkungen betrift, so widme ich solche einzig denjenigen Per-sonen meines Geschlechts, die, so wie ich, ohne eigentliche gelehrte Bildung, einen Sinn für das Alterthum und dessen Geschichte in der Seele tragen” (Recke, Tagebuche 1: vi).

26. “Erwarte daher keine Details darüber [Venedig] von mir, weil ich nicht ge-sonnen bin, andere [sic] Reisende abzuschreiben, oder aus einem Guide zu ersetzen, was ich versäumte. Ich will Dir nur erzählen, was ich sah, und wie ich es sah, und so hast Du zwar wenig, aber doch keine Nachbeterei zu erwarten” (Artner 123).

27. For example, Naples is subdivided into the chapters “Begräbnisse in Italien und die Katakomben in Palermo,” “Der Gettatore,” “Pompeji und Herculanum,” “Ein Souper am Posilip,” “Das Fest von Piedigrotta,” and “Die Badeorte” (see table of contents).


28. Brun explored Rome with the well- known archaeologists Jørgen Zoëga (1755– 1809), Karl Ludwig Fernow (1763– 1808), and Aloys Hirt (1759– 1837) (Foerst- Crato 8). Her memoirs Prosaische Schriften and Römisches Leben include more information about archaeological excavations.

29. “Unsere Verfasserin dachte sich zunächst für die Bemerkungen aus ihrem Reisetagebuche jüngere Leser ihres eigenen Geschlechts, die im gebildeten Kreise ihrer täglichen Umgebung von dem Wunderlande jenseits der Alpen, wohin jetzt alles ziehn und die Citronen blühen sehn will, auch schon allerlei Kundschaft vernahmen, und mit lobenswürdiger Wißbegierde erfüllt, sich gern von einer erfahrnen, das was ihnen gerade am meisten zu wissen noch thun möchte, richtig beurtheilenden Führe-rin in jenem Geburtslande aller neu europäischen Cultur begleitet und herumgeführt sähen” (Recke, Tagebuche 1: xvi).

30. “Soll ich einmal ein Bild brauchen, das einer Frau naheliegt, so möchte ich sagen, der Mailänder Dom sieht aus wie ein riesiges, überaus zartes Spitzengewebe” (F. Lewald 16).

31. Both Goethe and Nicolai wrote negatively about the vetturini, who were viewed as expensive but necessary evils. Comments about being cheated by the vet-turino abound in men’s travel narratives.

32. “Das Besitznehmen von einer Wohnung in Rom und um Rom ist immer für uns, an nordische Reinlichkeit Gewöhnten, eine sehr unangenehme Sache, denn nie fi ndet man Zimmer, die nur dem bescheidensten Anspruch auf diese erste Bedingung zum Dasein entsprächen” (Brun, Römisches Leben 2).

33. “Morgen geht unsre Reise nach Venedig. Wir haben einen Vetturino gedungen, der uns mit zwei Wagen und vier Pferden hin und zurückbringt, dabei für die Bekösti-gung unserer ganzen Gesellschaft, die aus sechs Personen besteht, sorgt, auch für die Fahrzeuge, die uns auf der Brenta nach Venedig führen: dies alles übernimmt er für vierzig holländische Dukaten” (Recke, Tagebuche 1: 139).

34. “Man sagt den Vetturinen viel Böses nach; ich bin von deutschen Fuhrleuten nie so gut behandelt worden, als von den beiden Vetturinen die wir bis jetzt hatten. Ueberhaupt ist das Reisen durch Italien unendlich leichter und angenehmer, als in Deutschland: die Wege sind vortreffl ich; fährt man mit der Post, so wird man in den Posthäusern schnell und mit Bereitwilligkeit abgefertigt” (Recke, Tagebuche 1: 221).

35. “Die Fahrt zwischen Triest und Venedig auf einem Dampfboot ist seit mehren Jahren im Gang und so sehr beliebt, daß sich diese Schiffe schon bis zu dreien ver-mehrten, und man fast täglich hin und wieder kommen kann. Obwohl der Preis be-deutend ist— die Frauen zahlen 10, die Herrn 9, und die Dienerschaft 6 fl . E. M.— so fi nden sich doch immer zahlreiche Passagiere” (Artner 126).

36. “Erst am dritten Tage hatte unser Vetturin versprochen, uns nach Genua zu liefern, und so langsam uns, die wir mit Dampfwagen zu fahren gewohnt sind, dies erscheinen mag, so ist diese Art zu reisen für Italien doch eine sehr angenehme, wenn eine Gesellschaft von vier einander bekannten Personen das Innere des Wagens in Beschlag nimmt. Man bedingt das Mittagessen— pranzo— und die Abendmahlzeit,


welche um sechs Uhr gegeben wird— die cena— , mit in den Preis für die Reise. Die Vetturine kehren fast überall in die besten Gasthäuser ein; die Zimmer sind nicht so reinlich wie in den ersten Hotels Deutschlands, aber ebenso sauber und viel besser eingerichtet, als man es in den kleinen Städten Ost- oder Westpreußens und Westfalens fi nden würde. An vielen Orten waren die Ziegelfußböden mit Teppichen belegt, die Riesenbetten überall sauber und oft mit Fliegennetzen versehen, die Mahlzeiten rein-lich und reichlich, und für all das sorgt der Vetturin, der auch das Gepäck in Obacht nimmt, welches abends auf den Wagen in den Remisen bleibt” (F. Lewald 36).

37. “Ich könnte nicht sagen, daß mich der Anblick dieser Stadt überrascht hätte; man sieht so viele Kupferstiche davon, und hört so viel von ihren Eigenthümlichkeit-en, daß ich wirklich ein getreues Bild davon hatte. Eben so wenig ist der Eindruck, den ihr Ganzes hervorbringt, angenehm” (Artner 129).

38. Also see my work on the panorama in “Constructing Paris.”39. “Der Prospekt der phantastisch bergauf gebauten Stadt Sujaco, mit den grün

terrassierten Felshöhen umkränzt— überthront vom rauhen Monte Calvo, umrauscht von dem rasch durch das Brückenjoch hinströmenden, zu unsern Füssen hinrollenden Anio, war wunderschön. Bald erblickten wir das Gemählde durch einen Frühlingsre-genfl or, bald angeglänzt von der sinkenden Nachmittagssonne” (Brun, Episoden aus Reisen durch das untere Italien 2: 53).

40. “Links steigt schroff das appenninische Kalkgebirg mit scharfen Rücken und bläulichröthlichen Tinten. Näher treten die drey Monticelli- Berge vor” (Brun, Epi-soden aus Reisen durch das untere Italien 2: 4).

41. “Ich schrie auf, vor Uebermaaß des Entzückens” (Brun, Episoden aus Reisen durch das untere Italien 2: 24).

42. Following in the footsteps of Winckelmann and Zoega, Recke undertook a se-rious and well- organized program of historical study focused on antiquity.

43. “Mich interessiert die alte Kunst vorzüglich darum, weil ich durch sie mit dem Geist der Vorzeit bekannter werde” (Recke, Tagebuche 1: 26).

44. “Die Zusammenstellung zwischen dem antiken und modernen Rom erregt sehr melancholische Empfi ndungen, welche selbst durch die Pracht der neuern Er-scheinungen noch erhöht werden” (Recke, Tagebuche 2: 122).

45. “Aber wie befriedigt, wie überrascht, wie entzückt stand ich vor der umfas-senden Aussicht! Die nahen und entfernten Gegenstände hatten einen Zauber ange-nommen, der die lebendigste Beschreibung, die ich mitbrachte, übertraf. Hier vor mir die ehrwürdige Roma! Ihr berühmter Strom, und ihre stillen Ruinen! Die prächtige moderne Peterskuppel, und das antike Pantheon, Hadrians Grabmaal; und gegenüber die grünende Villa Medici” (Recke, Tagebuche 2: 136– 37).

46. “Still bewundernd werde ich diesen Tempel durchwandern, hier und da bei einem ausgezeichneten Kunstwerk verweilen, und für meine durchaus anspruchlose Bemerkungen nur dasjenige ausheben, was mein Gefühl besonders ergriff und mir werthe Empfi ndungen zurückließ” (Recke, Tagebuche 2: 248).

47. “Freilich ist dies Land auch im Allgemeinen von so viel geistreichen Besuchern geschildert worden, daß sich jeder Unterrichtete bereits ein Bild davon entwarf, und


Alles von so viel Seiten beleuchtet, daß sich beinahe nichts Neues darüber sagen läßt. Indessen steht doch jeder Selbstdenkende auf einem andern Standpunkt, und sieht mit andern Augen, kann also, bei der unendlichen Mannigfaltigkeit der Ansichten, hie und da etwas noch nicht Bemerktes wahrnehmen” (Artner 97).

48. “Man wandelt hindurch wie trunken, betäubt, ja abgespannt von so viel Blen-dendem” (Artner 149).

49. “Im allgemeinen könnte man die Schar der Reisenden in zwei Klassen teilen, die streng voneinander geschieden sind: in diejenigen Menschen, welche reisen, um recht viel zu sehen, und diejenigen, welche reisen, um zu genießen. Dies letztere schließt das ‘recht viel sehen’ entschieden aus. Es gibt nichts Qualvolleres, als im-merfort und obenein in Eile eine Menge fremder Eindrücke in sich aufzunehmen, und grade darum sind gewöhnlich die ersten Tage in einer fremden Stadt wenig genußre-ich, ja unangenehm” (F. Lewald 64).

50. Ujma also observes that Lewald bothers little with the conventional sights of the journey and focuses intensively on “contemporary life” of the visited country (“Rom– Paris– London” 204).

51. There is certainly an educational aspect to women’s lack of interest in antiq-uity, as women did not enjoy the same classical education as men did. Recke tried to rectify this lack with her book.

52. See, e.g., Lewald’s description of the Capitol in Rome. While Goethe had de-scribed the ruins of the Capitol from a distant vantage point, Lewald strolls through the ruins and focuses on the people of Rome, who use the open space for picnics and entertainment (233– 36).

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Documents

Packaging the Grand Tour: German Women Authors Write Italy, 1791–1874