Cultural Spot: Rome: a grand tour for the 21st century

Nick Trend goes to Rome to retrace the steps taken by English nobles 250 years ago

"A man who has not been in Italy is always conscious of an inferiority, from his not having seen what it is expected a man should see." So, according to James Boswell, said Dr Johnson in the 1770s.

Johnson never travelled abroad, and this must have been one of those rare moments when Boswell, who had spent nearly three years on a Grand Tour of the Continent, felt a sense of superiority over his friend.

But whether Boswell's idea of what a man should see was the same as Johnson's is another question. When in Rome, he wrote: "I remembered the rakish deeds of Horace and those other amorous Roman poets, and I thought that one might well allow one's self a little indulgence in a city where there are prostitutes licensed by the Cardinal Vicar."

There was certainly plenty of fun to be had. Most of Boswell's fellow Grand Tourists were rich, well-connected young men in their early 20s and their antics attracted some derision.

The Frenchman Charles de Brosses, who was living in Rome at the time, commented: "There are some who will have left the city without having seen anyone but other Englishmen and without even knowing where the Colosseum is."

But sex and socialising were only part of the story. While they certainly ate well and partied hard, most also did an awful lot of sightseeing and even a bit of study.

Which is what, of course, their parents thought they were doing all along. After all, this was supposed to be a chance to finish a Classical education - a sort of cultural gap year on which a young man chaperoned by a tutor-guide (a cicerone) could study the culture of the Roman and Renaissance worlds on location.

The high point of the Grand Tour was Rome itself. For many it was the farthest point from home and it offered the excitement of seeing both the most famous ruins and some of the most celebrated works of art in the world.

True, some tourists were profoundly unmoved by it all. In 1762, the 4th Duke of Gordon managed to obtain the services of the greatest antiquarian of the time, Johann Winckelmann, as a guide. When they pulled up outside the Belvedere Palace at the Vatican, the young aristocrat refused even to step out of his carriage.

But others were inspired by the art and the architecture they discovered, and many of Britain's stately homes became showcases for Italian art and Roman sculpture (both original and copied) brought back from the Grand Tour.

Typical of these souvenir-hunters was Thomas Coke, first Earl of Leicester. He spent six years on a spending spree, acquiring vast quantities of art and antiquities. He was also inspired to commission William Kent, whom he met in Rome, to build Holkham Hall in Norfolk, the Palladian mansion that is still home to his collection.

We tend to forget the connection between that generation of itinerant aristocrats and what we now do on our own European holidays .

They stimulated the beginnings of the Italian hotel industry, pioneered the guided tour and influenced the whole concept of museums. Parts of the Vatican and Capitoline museums were arguably set up to cater for the demand.

I went back to Rome to try to retrace some of their steps.

Then and Now

. Vatican Museums

It wasn't the Sistine ceiling and the Raphael stanze that were top of the Grand Tourists' list, though these were still admired. It was the statues of Apollo, the Laocoon and Antinous in the Belvedere Courtyard, and what was then thought to be a reclining "Cleopatra" in the gallery beyond. The courtyard has hardly changed in the past 150 years and the statues are all still there, though they are not revered by modern eyes quite in the way they were by the Grand Tourists.

. Colosseum

As today, this was one of the great sights of the tour. Modern tourists can see far more of the original Roman building - in the 1750s about a third of the northern side of the amphitheatre was being used to house a religious order and the rest was notorious for petty theft. But they didn't have to queue so long to get in.

. The Forum

Serious excavations to remove several feet of accumulated soil did not start in the Forum until the early 19th century.

What the Grand Tourists saw was a field of grazing cows with the occasional column sticking out - much more of a pastoral scene than the archaeological site exposed today. But they would have been guided around by their ciceroni in much the way tour groups are led today.

. Capitoline Museums

Founded in 1734, the Capitoline Museums were considered on a par with the Vatican collections. Its antique sculptures were world-famous, with the marble statue of the Dying Gaul (then thought to be a gladiator) and the bronzes of Camillus and the Spinario (Boy with a thorn in his foot) universally admired.

In 1752, a sensational addition of a marble Venus was made to the collection (donated by the Pope). For many years, she vied for admiration with the Medici Venus, which had been removed to Florence in the 17th century. Today she stands in a room of her own, looking a little unloved.

. Piazza di Spagna

The network of streets leading up to the Spanish Steps became the prime haunt of English travellers. Here they would (and still do) stay, eat and shop. Little remains quite as it was in the 18th century, but there are still traces from a few years later.

Keats, terminally ill with TB, stayed here for a few weeks before his death in 1821 and you can still visit his apartments overlooking the steps. Just opposite are Babington's Tea Rooms, which have been serving proper English tea since 1893, and down the street is the Hotel d'Inghilterra, a favourite with English visitors since 1845.

. Pompeo Batoni's Studio

A few doors down from the d'Inghilterra, at 25 Via Bocca di Leone, there is nothing to suggest that this was once the social hub for British and Irish aristocrats. But from the late 1750s, they would throng here to have portraits painted by the most fashionable artist in the city.

Batoni was admired not only for his brilliance at flattering his subjects, but also because he would, at extra cost, include famous antiquities as part of the composition. (He was, nevertheless, excellent value, charging about half the price demanded for a full-length portrait by Gainsborough or Reynolds in London.)

A Batoni portrait became a visual record of a tour, a must-have for your wall when you returned home. He painted dozens and they are fascinating in their variety.

Colonel the Hon William Gordon poses with imperial haughtiness, dressed in what appears to be a silk tartan toga with the ruined Colosseum in the background - the personification of 18th-century cultural arrogance.

Sir Humphry Morice, meanwhile, who was in Italy mainly for health reasons, appears entirely oblivious to any culture other than hunting and is shown in a rural setting with his dogs and his kill.

For the politician Sir Gregory Page-Turner, however, a Batoni portrait is an opportunity to demonstrate his Classical credentials - the Colosseum in the background is supplemented by a bust of Minerva and several leather-bound tomes.

Perhaps fittingly, the street front is now a Versace outlet. But you can see several of Batoni's portraits in the National Gallery in London. - ©The Telegraph