Foreign Travelers and Urban Mobility. Understanding the Three Ecologies of Early Modern Rome

In the 16th century, Michel de Montaigne described his walks across Rome as a way of exploring its history. In the 17th century, the painter Nicolas Poussin would make daily walks through Rome, often with like-minded artists. Toward the end of the 18th century, French magistrate and man of letter Jean-Baptiste Dupaty would wander aimlessly in the streets of Rome to counter the overwhelming grandeur of the city and thus be able to restrain his desire to see everything at once. These “promenades” served as much for direct observation of the city’s topography as for engaging in aesthetic reflection. Although walking in Rome was a common activity among its visitors, French travelers were unique in developing a distinct philosophical discourse on walking, inspired by the rebuilding of Paris. This project traces their itineraries through texts and images that analyze Rome’s transformations between the 16th and the 18th centuries. It investigates their role in constructing Rome’s modern image through the physical engagement with its material, natural, and social environments. Walking became the foundation for a particular way of representing the city in verbal and pictorial visions that inspired changes in how these environments were connected.

Susanna Caviglia is Associate Professor in Art and Art History at Duke University, NC. Her research interests focus on French art in the long eighteenth century, early modern theory and practice of drawing, representations of the body in art, art and environment and cross-cultural relationships within the Mediterranean world. She is the author of Charles-Joseph Natoire, 1700-1777 (2012) and History, painting, and the seriousness of pleasure in the age of Louis XV (2020), and the editor of several collective volumes. Her work appeared in peer review journals such as Art History, Word & Image, and Perspective.

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Scientific Organization: Sara Vitacca