An Italian Voyage, or, A Compleat Journey through Italy

1698

de Beer Eb 1698 L

London: Printed for Richard Wellington

Roman Catholic priest and travel writer Richard Lassels (c.1608-1668) coined the phrase ‘grand tour’. In his An Italian Voyage, he writes: ‘If they [other writers]… have represented Italy unto us like a naked Image, I may perhaps be allowed to say that I have set her out in all her best Attire and Jewels.’ Of the fifteen ‘jewels’ of Padua, 40 kilometres west of Venice, he lists ‘publick Schools’, the Church of St Anthony, known locally as ‘Il Santo’; the statue of ‘Gatta Mela’, Donatello’s equestrian statue of the Venetian general Gattamelata (Erasmo da Narni), which was cast in 1453; and the Church of St Justina, designed by Padua-born architect Andrea Palladio. His ‘publick Schools’ may include the University of Padua, Italy’s second oldest university, founded in 1222.