Florens 2012, 5: Marketing Italy — with Sustainability...and a Word about Museums, by Michael MIller

Giovanni Paolo Pannini, Picture Gallery with Views of Modern Rome, Oil on canvas, 1757. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

In a part of Florens 2012, the academics, business figures, and other experts who attend will explore the subjects developed two years ago, within a wide-ranging scheme, specifically tailored for this meeting, mainly the theme: “from the Grand Tour to the Global Tour.” Fundamentally, the way the world perceives Italy and enjoys the many extraordinary things the country has to offer descend from the Grand Tour, the capstone of an English aristocrat’s education beginning in the sixteenth century and continuing on into our own time, however much its character has been democratized in the twentieth century. On the Grand Tour a young man would make the journey to Italy, often in the company of a tutor, or some educated older male companion. He saw the sights, studied them, dabbled in the Italian language, indulged in pleasures, and collected. It would be a sorry Grand Tour that didn’t bring home antiquities, paintings, drawings, or some odd objects as mementos of the young man’s discoveries.


Read the full article on the Berkshire Review, an International Journal for the Arts!