Episode Highlights
Episode 1: Mont Cenis Pass, Turin, and Milan
Highlights
- After enduring the rigors of crossing the Alps, 18th-century Grand Tourists would spend months at Turin's Academia, learning manners, dancing, dressage with horses, fencing, and other gentlemanly skills.
- Turin boasted two great architects: Filippo Juvarra (the Basilica of Superga) and Guarino Guarini (the Church of San Lorenzo).
- Staged in equally elaborate settings, operas and boar hunts were favored pastimes of Grand Tourists.
- Then, as now, Milan served as the fashion capital of Europe.
Questions to Consider
- How does the idea behind the 18th-century Grand Tour compare with modern-day curricula that include study-abroad semesters and gap years?
- Sewell does his best to allay viewers' squeamishness about hunting as a genteel sport. What are your views on the matter?
- "Macaroni" referred to English fops who dressed in outlandish fashions of the time. What do we call faddish dressers now? Does our slang carry the same sense of derision?
Episode 2: Cremona, Parma, and Bologna
Highlights
- In Cremona, Grand Tourists sought violins from craftsmen who carried on the tradition of Amati and Stradivari.
- Parma's masterpieces include Correggio's cathedral dome (a fresco that gives the illusion of breaking through the architecture and providing a glimpse into heaven) and the Teatro Farnese (the first theatre with a proscenium arch and movable scenery).
- In Bologna, Grand Tourists studied the 16th- and 17th-century artists Annibale Carracci, Guido Reni, and Il Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri).
- The doors of San Petronio, carved by Jacopo della Quercia in the 15th century, inspired Michelangelo.
Questions to Consider
- Why place a masterpiece such as Correggio's Assumption of the Virgin in a spot so hard to see, especially without 21st-century artificial light? What was the Church's intention when it commissioned this fresco?
- Richardson's guide to Italian paintings advised Grand Tourists to look for balanced composition, color, and well-executed drawing. Do you think his checklist is complete? What do you look for when appreciating a work of art?
- Sewell bemoans television's tendency to dumb down presentations. How do you think Sewell has pitched his commentaries in this program so far–too high, too low, or just right?
Episode 3: Florence
Highlights
- No one knows how Brunelleschi constructed the magnificent dome of the Duomo without scaffolding.
- Grand Tourists would gather at the residence of Horace Mann, the British envoy to Florence, for English companionship and gossip.
- The Uffizi Gallery and the Pitti Palace now house artwork acquired by the Medicis, former pawnbrokers who became Florence's most powerful family.
- Though now in the Accademia, Michelangelo's David once stood outside in a piazza; his sculpted masterpieces of Dawn, Evening, Night, and Day grace the tomb of Giuliano de' Medici.
Questions to Consider
- Grand Tourists debated the relative merits of the Medici Venus and Titian's Venus of Urbino. Which do you prefer as a work of art?
- Sewell excoriates Giorgio Vasari's tomb of Michelangelo in Santa Croce, calling the figures "so bad they make me angry." Do you agree or disagree with his assessment?
- Sewell says that Michelangelo's sense of purpose and execution separated him from Leonardo, Raphael, and other great artists. What do you appreciate most about Michelangelo's genius?
Episode 4: San Gimignano, Siena, Radicofani, and Orvieto
Highlights
- In San Gimignano, Sewell notes that execution was a public spectacle during the 18th century.
- Sewell finds much to admire in Siena's cathedral and in the paintings in the town's city hall, the Palazzo Pubblico.
- Although most Grand Tourists probably never visited Orvieto, Sewell stops there to view Signorelli's frescoes of the Last Judgment, which influenced Michelangelo and Raphael.
Questions to Consider
- What are your views on the public execution or punishment of criminals that occurred 300 years ago?
- Sewell wonders whether the camera can capture all that he sees in a sculpture or painting when he views it firsthand. What are some of the advantages and disadvantages of seeing this artwork onscreen, rather than in person?
Episode 5: Rome
Highlights
- Proving the ancient model for the contemporary British idea of empire, Rome became a political and cultural mecca for 18th-century Grand Tourists.
- Among the treasures in St. Peter's, the Pieta shows Michelangelo's masterful technique and daring imagination.
- With livestock grazing among the ruins, the Forum combined the pastoral with the classical, a scene which appealed to Grand Tourists.
- Villa d'Este's fountains provided an escape from the heat and stench of the city.
- The Grand Tourists' insatiable appetite for acquiring art and antiquities helped lead to the creation of the Vatican Museum.
Questions to Consider
- Sewell dismisses Bernini's canopied altar in St. Peter's as "vulgar." Do you agree or disagree? Are there famous pieces of art that you don't appreciate aesthetically?
- How do you react to Sewell's commentaries on other Roman sights, such as the Pantheon and Trevi fountain?
- The dirt and stench of Rome dashed the Grand Tourists' idealized expectations. When have you been similarly disappointed in your travels, and how did you react? Have you ever been happily surprised by a destination?
Episode 6: Naples and New Pompeii
Highlights
- At the opera in the royal court in Naples, the performances moved Grand Tourists in a way that the visual arts did not.
- The royal sculpture collection includes the massive Farnese Hercules and Farnese Bull, the largest Roman antiquity ever excavated.
- For Grand Tourists, Mount Vesuvius was hotter, more unpredictable, and more dangerous than it is today.
Questions to Consider
- How did you respond to the soprano's performance? Do theatrical and visual arts affect you differently? Which do you prefer?
- Sewell clearly doesn't like the massive Farnese sculptures. What are your impressions of these works?
- If volcanic ash and lava engulfed and preserved a modern American city, what might archaeologists conclude about our civilization from its remains?
Episode 7: Paestum, Todi, and Urbino
Highlights
- After musing over Greek ruins at Paestum, Grand Tourists braved bandit country en route to Venice.
- Urbino preserves the Renaissance style perfectly–particularly in the inlaid cabinet doors of the Ducal Palace, which give the illusion of revealing the cupboards' contents.
Questions to Consider
- For Grand Tourists, the ruins at Paestum evoked melancholy at the transience of human endeavor. What feelings do they evoke in you?
- Sewell spends much of this episode reminiscing about his adventurous student days. What's the most outrageous story you've heard from students studying abroad? Describe your own most memorable incident while traveling.
Episode 8: Rimini, Ferrara, and Mantua
Highlights
- In the 15th century, Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, a member of the ruling family of Rimini, turned a Franciscan church into a personal, pagan-style temple, complete with elephant motif. Upon his ouster, it reverted to a church.
- Visiting an olive press, Sewell learns that "extra virgin" olive oil contains no more than 0.8 percent oleic acid.
- In 16th-century Mantua, Giulio Romano designed and decorated the Palazzo del Te as a monument to the pleasures of the flesh, in honor of Federico Gonzaga's mistress.
Questions to Consider
- Do you consider an automobile–like the ones that Sewell admires in the road rally here–a work of art? Why or why not?
- How would you compare the art in the Mantua Palazzo, devoted to decidedly temporal subject matter, with the great religious art shown elsewhere in this series?
Episode 9: Vicenza, Possagno, and Padua
Highlights
- In Vicenza and the surrounding countryside, Grand Tourists encountered the serene, welcoming architecture of Andrea Palladio–especially in the basilica and Olympic Theatre.
- Paintings by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo and his son, Giandomenico, grace the rooms of the Villa Valmarana.
- The sculptor Antonio Canova did a bustling business with Grand Tourists from his studio in Possagno.
- At the university in Padua, Grand Tourists indulged their fascination with human anatomy (as was common in the Enlightenment), and sought cures for venereal disease from Dr. Giovanni Battista Morgagni.
Questions to Consider
- What do you admire about Palladio's architecture? Where have you seen his influence outside of Italy?
- From what you've seen, what made Canova the most influential sculptor of the 18th century?
- Why do you think people in the 18th century became so fascinated with anatomy? Would you attend a dissection in an anatomy theatre? Does pop culture today reflect a similar interest?
Episode 10: Venice
Highlights
- With a far-flung trading empire in silk and spices, 18th-century Venice had earned a reputation for conspicuous displays of wealth and libertine ways.
- In the 18th century, a well-established code of manners governed even vices such as gambling and illicit liaisons at Carnival balls.
- The ornately decorated Doges' Palace also housed the senate chambers for the Venetian Republic.
- Built to commemorate the city's deliverance from the plague, Santa Maria della Salute shows Eastern influences in its largely Baroque design–like many of the buildings in Venice.
Questions to Consider
- How does Carnival in Venice differ from Mardi Gras in the United States or pre-Lenten celebrations elsewhere?
- Venice's immense riches led to its emergence as an artistic and cultural capital of Europe. What, in your opinion, is the relationship between a nation's wealth and its cultural or artistic achievement? Is one necessary for the other?
- What have been the most memorable experiences on your Grand Tour with Brian Sewell? Why?
