Overview

The Duchy of Savoy first claimed royal status in the seventeenth century, but only in 1713 was Victor Amadeus II, Duke of Savoy (1666–1732), crowned King of Sicily. The events of the Peace of Utrecht (1713) sanctioned the decades-long project, the Duchy had pursued through the convoluted maze of political relationships between foreign powers. Of these, the British Kingdom was one of their most assiduous advocates, because of complimentary dynastic, political, cultural and commercial interests. A notable stream of British diplomats and visitors to the Savoy capital engaged in an extraordinary and reciprocal exchange with the Turinese during this fertile period. The flow of travellers, a number of whom were British emissaries and envoys posted to the court, coincided, in part, with the itineraries of the international Grand Tour which transformed the capital into a gateway to Italy, resulting in a conflagration of cultural cosmopolitanism in early modern Europe.

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9781316602133

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Reviews

'An in-depth study of Turin in the context of the Grand Tour is welcome both because the city was a significant 'stagingpost' on the way to Florence, Rome, Naples and Venice and because it has often been left on the margins of Grand Tour scholarship.' Clare Hornsby, The Burlington Magazine

Author Information

Paola Bianchi is a Ricercatore confermato at the Università della Valle d'Aosta, where she teaches Early Modern History. She has researched and written on the journeys of various English travellers who came to Italy in the eighteenth century to be present at the Savoy court and to be part of Piedmont society. Her publications include Onore e mestiere. Le riforme militari nel Piemonte del Settecento (2002); Cuneo in età moderna. Città e stato nel Piemonte d'antico regime (with A. Merlotti) (2002); Sotto diverse bandiere. L'internazionale militare nello stato sabaudo d'antico regime (2012); L'affermarsi della corte sabauda. Dinastie, poteri, élites in Piemonte e Savoia fra tardo Medioevo e prima età moderna (with L.C. Gentile) (2006); and Le strategie dell'apparenza. Cerimoniali, politica e società alla corte dei Savoia in età moderna (with A. Merlotti) (2010). Karin Wolfe is a Research Fellow at the British School at Rome. Her research focuses on topics in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Italian history, including art, architecture, patronage, and collecting, as well as the history of cardinals and the Grand Tour. Her publications include Roma Britannica: Art Patronage and Cultural Exchange in Eighteenth-Century Rome (edited with D. R. Marshall and S. Russell, 2011) and American Latium: American Artists In and Around Rome in the Age of the Grand Tour (edited with C. M. S. Johns and T. Manfredi, forthcoming). She is presently completing a monograph on Francesco Trevisani, Francesco Trevisani (1656-1746): A Universal Painter, Catalogue Raisonné.

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