Upcoming
Sites to Behold: Travels in Eighteenth-Century Rome
Lunch-hour Talk:
"Clerics, Scholars, and Drunken Englishman"
November 20
Smart Voices: Reading Rome
February 2
Lecture: "Through Piranesi's Eyes"
April 1
See how the Grand Tour survives today in the contemporary film industry's depictions of Italy.
A Room with a View
November 30
The Talented Mr. Ripley
December 15
The Portrait of a Lady
January 24
Roman Holiday
February 21
The Belly of an Architect
March 21
Enchanted April
April 6
Presented in collaboration with the Italian Cultural Institute of Chicago.
Explore an interactive map of Rome.
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.
Curator: Anne Leonard, Smart Museum Curator and Mellon Program Coordinator.
Explore Rome
Become a virtual tourist and explore an interactive map of Rome. The map, which you can also access at a kiosk in the gallery during your visit to the Smart Museum, allows you to locate many of the sites portrayed in the exhibition. Rollover 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.
Above: Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Frontispiece to the Views of Rome: Ruins with Statue of Minerva, c. 1748, Etching on laid paper. Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago, Gift of Collection of Edward A. and Inge Maser in honor of Kimerly Rorschach 2004.41.