Il viaggio nel Mezzogiorno dell'età moderna: stereotipi, ragioni e suggestioni

In the 18th century the return of the attention for the Greek-Roman antiquity fosters the renewed interest for the trip to Italy. The novelty in the Midday of Italy was constituted above all by a strong presence of English nobles that on the one hand gave life to a literature with numerous stereotypes that would have weighed in the European judgment on the Southerners, but on the other hand they looked among the ancient ruins for the symbols that allowed them to acquire patrician ways of life, legitimating them in their own social supremacy in homeland. It was also England of the industrial Revolution that gathered the occasion offered by the southern archaeological discoveries, not only to exploit them through the marketing, but, following the culture and the trends, to associate them to the production of various artifacts. The Midday and the Italy, therefore, made more European the customs and trends of English elite.