Sites to Behold: Travels in Eighteenth-Century Rome
November 3, 2009 – April 11, 2010
Jean-Baptiste Lallemand, View of Rome: The Tiber River with the Castel Sant'Angelo and St. Peter's Basilica in the Distance, n.d., Gouache on paper. Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago, Gift of Lucia Woods Lindley, 2006.96.
Rome has long been a leading tourist destination.
Many of the "must-see" sites were codified centuries ago as part of the Grand Tour, a journey undertaken by young aristocrats to complete their education and give them experience of the world. But by the late eighteenth century, the once-exclusive Grand Tour was giving way to more modern, democratic notions of travel.
No longer the preserve of a privileged elite, travel to Italy and other places came within the reach of a wider public, who were eager for tangible souvenirs of what they saw and experienced. This exhibition presents etchings by Giovanni Battista Piranesi, gouache drawings by Frenchman Jean-Baptiste Lallemand, and other works depicting Rome and nearby Tivoli. These eighteenth-century artists, with their different temperaments, techniques, and styles, produced a breathtaking variety of art. A far cry from the monotony of the picture-postcard aesthetic, the works on view appealed to a wide array of tastes and allowed travelers of the period to marvel at the splendor and ruin of an ancient world long after they returned home.
Explore a map of Rome
Become a virtual tourist and explore Rome.
The map allows you to locate many of the sites portrayed in the Smart Museum's 2009 exhibition Sites to Behold. Click on the markers to compare the eighteenth-century views with their present-day appearance and learn what made them fixtures on a tourist’s Roman itinerary.
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Presented in collaboration with the Italian Cultural Institute of Chicago.