The Gentleman’s Guide in his Tour through Italy

Creator

Date

1787

Identifier

de Beer Eb 1787 M

Publisher

London: Printed for, and sold by, G. Kearsley

Abstract

The capital of Liguria is Genova or Genoa; the largest sea-port in Italy and its sixth largest city. From the beginning of the second millennium Genoa had a strong maritime presence in the Mediterranean and the city prospered as a major trading port in Europe. Thomas Martyn (1735-1825), in his Gentleman’s Guide, writes of his visit to Genoa in the late 18th century. He describes the population as ‘laborious, industrious and brave’ but laments that ‘scarcely any of them are able to speak pure Italian’; Ligurian, a Gallo-Romance language is still widely spoken in Genoa today. In 1884, 50,000 Italian emigrants passed through Genoa on their way to South America; just a fraction of the 7.5 million Italians that emigrated to the Americas from 1876 to 1914.

Files

Cabinet 3 pages 66-67.jpg

Citation

Thomas Martyn, “The Gentleman’s Guide in his Tour through Italy,” ourheritage.ac.nz | OUR Heritage, accessed November 25, 2024, https://otago.ourheritage.ac.nz/index.php/items/show/8580.