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The exhibition has been organized with the support of the Italian Ministry of Culture, the Consulate General of Italy, and the Italian Institute of Culture in St Petersburg.
As is well known, the term Grand Tour began to gain currency in 1697, when Richard Lassels, priest and tutor to aristocratic families, published his book The Voyage of Italy, in which he argued that young members of the English elite ought to complete their moral and cultural education by visiting the Bel Paese — the “beautiful country.”
From the standpoint of both history and sociology, modern tourism dates back to the early eighteenth century, and Italy was the first destination of the tourist age. It is therefore hardly surprising that this fashion was immediately embraced with enthusiasm by the aristocracy of the Russian Empire, the great power then rising to prominence, thus inaugurating a fruitful process of mutual discovery between our two peoples.
In the century that followed, fashion became tradition, and few of the great Russian intellectuals of modern history failed to leave in their writings some trace of the spontaneous sense of spiritual and emotional kinship with the Italian people that ripened during their travels. For in the “Russian version” of the Grand Tour, it was not only—and not even primarily—the vestiges of classical civilization that attracted the visitor’s attention, but rather an empathetic response to the life and spirit of the people, so strikingly similar in both our cultures.
This collection of photographs, purchased in Italy by Russian travellers of the nineteenth century and preserved in Russian state and private archives, is a precious testimony to that tradition, which continues to exert a profound influence on the friendly relations between Italy and Russia.
We express our gratitude to the organizers of the exhibition, including ROSPHOTO and the Italian Institute of Culture in St Petersburg, for having conceived and brought this project to life.
Италия, итальянские виды и памятники за прошедшие века стали неотъемлемой точкой притяжения русских туристов, которые с эпохи Возрождения до наших дней часто выбирают нашу страну целью своей поездки. Их путешествия задокументированы в многочисленных дневниках, опубликованных и нет, а также их восхищение Италией получило отражение в незабвенных литературных произведениях. Со второй половины XIX века, благодаря развитию фотографии, к письменным свидетельствам
Italy, its landscapes and monuments, has for centuries remained an irresistible destination for Russian travellers, who, from the Renaissance to the present day, have so often chosen our country as the goal of their journeys. Their travels are documented in numerous diaries, both published and unpublished, while their admiration for Italy found expression in unforgettable literary works.
From the second half of the nineteenth century onward, thanks to the development of photography, written testimony was joined by images collected in albums purchased by travellers, who took them home as keepsakes of Italy—to leaf through in moments of nostalgia, to show to friends, or simply to decorate their homes. These are important historical documents, allowing us to trace both broader shifts in taste and more specific changes in the cities visited by tourists.
The exhibition Grand Tour: The Russian Version brings together a large number of such photographs discovered in the archives of ROSPHOTO and in the collection of Pavel and Anastasia Khoroshilov, offering invaluable material for the study of our country as well as for the history of photography itself. Immersing oneself in these images, one may not only examine the most visited Italian cities in detail, but also recover the names of the famous photographic studios of the period—now, regrettably, forgotten—and preserve in the collective memory the names of the pioneers of the new art of photography.
The exhibition is accompanied by letters and travel diaries, masterfully selected by its curators. I would like to thank Zakhar Kolovsky, Director of ROSPHOTO, for the opportunity to collaborate in bringing this project to fruition, and also for his deep and sustained interest in our country.
Alik Sidorov
1980s
Italy has long been esteemed as a land made fascinating by its historical associations and by the multitude of exquisite works of art it contains. Favoured by a temperate and beneficent climate, its picturesque landscapes, remarkable monuments, and rich repositories of the finest creations of nature and art have earned for it the title of the paradise of Europe, to which in recent times a great number of inquisitive travellers have flocked. Not a few of our compatriots, too, under the pretext of improving their health and in the desire to delight in the sight of the immortal examples of architecture, sculpture, and painting, undertake this journey, each according to his means and the character of his taste. Bekhteev, An Account of Italy. Moscow, 1846. P. V.
Italy has long been esteemed as a land made fascinating by its historical associations and by the multitude of exquisite works of art it contains. Favoured by a temperate and beneficent climate, its picturesque landscapes, remarkable monuments, and rich repositories of the finest creations of nature and art have earned for it the title of the paradise of Europe, to which in recent times a great number of inquisitive travellers have flocked. Not a few of our compatriots, too, under the pretext of improving their health and in the desire to delight in the sight of the immortal examples of architecture, sculpture, and painting, undertake this journey, each according to his means and the character of his taste.
The second half of the nineteenth century was marked by a desire to “broaden one’s horizons” and to discover other countries and peoples. Photography proved ideally suited to this impulse, making it possible to travel without leaving home and to satisfy one’s thirst for knowledge of the world through its reproducible images. This quality of photography became the point of departure for the later flood of visual information that has engulfed us, and for the beginnings of the semantic thinking and image-based communication of modernity. Italy occupies a special place within this body of photographic imagery.
By the late 1850s and 1860s, the conditions of photographic production made it possible to reproduce stable, high-quality images. Mass reproduction became commercialized and broadened the market. Photography turned its attention to the topography of place in all its manifestations — landscapes, architectural monuments, industrial structures, and regional types. The spread of scenic photographic views was further encouraged by the appearance, from 1851 onward, of “photographic printing houses.”
In the photography of this period, documentary aims coexisted with aesthetic aspirations. In effect, as photographers created a new visual genre, they sought to appeal to the viewer, to shape taste in the case of exotic regions, or to correspond to established stereotypes in the case of well-known classical subjects.
Photographic documents formed a compendium of visual knowledge of world geography—but who can say whether it was not they that persuaded the viewer that the photographic gaze must necessarily be neutral and impartial? A New History of Photography, ed. by M. Frizot. St Petersburg, 2008. P. 140.
Photographic documents formed a compendium of visual knowledge of world geography—but who can say whether it was not they that persuaded the viewer that the photographic gaze must necessarily be neutral and impartial?
A series of scenic photographs were extraordinarily accessible: they were sold in souvenir shops and hotels, at quays and railway stations. Every traveller aspired to purchase an album-souvenir or to select an image from a catalogue “as a keepsake.” Photographs were gathered into personal “travel albums,” adorned salons and drawing rooms, and invited imaginary journeys. By the late 1860s, periodicals began to publish “illustrations from photographs.” Despite their many similarities, photographs of the topographical genre—or “travel photography”— were distinguished by national imagery and local colour.
In the first half of the nineteenth century, Italy continued to attract the creative elite. Rome became the cultural and artistic capital of Europe: by the late 1840s, the Eternal City had become a centre of amateur photography. At the same time, some of the best-known early topographical daguerreotypes depicted views of Venice.
From the early 1850s onward, painters on scholarship at the Villa Medici were supplied with photographic views by Giacomo Caneva, Tommaso Cuccioni, and also by the partners Gioacchino Altobelli and Pompeo Molins. Painters not only used photography in the creation of their works, but often became photographers themselves. One such example was the Scotsman Robert Macpherson, who lived in Rome and had previously devoted ten years to painting. This gifted artist specialized in large-format photographic vedutes of Rome and its surroundings — Spoleto, Perugia, and Assisi— which were sold to tourists. The English watercolourist James Anderson founded a firm specializing in the photographic recording of the remains of ancient Rome.
From the beginning of the nineteenth century, visiting southern Italy became an integral part of the Russian Grand Tour. Naples, Pompeii, and their surroundings attracted writers, philosophers, and travellers not only by their rich history, but also by their setting, their mild maritime climate, and the distinctive atmosphere of dolce far niente—the sweetness of doing nothing.
For three decades, the leading photographer of southern Italy was the German-born Giorgio Sommer. In the mid-1870s, local photographic studios also began to appear, generally family-run enterprises: the Esposito studio, Brogi, and the studio of Achille Mauri. The photographic market of Naples was filled with romantic “studies from nature”: panoramic views of the city and its surroundings, and seascapes. One of the most popular subjects was the view of the Bay of Naples with Vesuvius in the background.
Photographs of southern Italy differ markedly from the austere and restrained topographical and architectural views of Rome. Images of Naples are peopled with figures: traders, fishermen, carefree lazzaroni (street loafers), and lively scugnizzi (street boys).
Favourite subjects of local photographers included scenes on the waterfront, at the market, and street dances.
In all the major cities of Italy, local photographic chroniclers were at work, often having arrived from other countries where they had already achieved recognition and success. In Florence, the Alinari brothers held sway; in Tuscany, the field was shaped by the dynasty founded by Giacomo Brogi.
The flourishing of Florentine photography is closely associated with the name Alinari. Thanks to the brothers’ energetic activity and contracts with major museums, the firm quickly achieved international success. In 1856, they published their first catalogue of views of Florence, Siena, and Pisa, together with photographic reproductions of works of Italian art.
“Venice is a city for the eyes; all the other senses play here a barely audible second fiddle.” Joseph Brodsky, Watermark, St Petersburg, 2018, p. 13
“Venice is a city for the eyes;
all the other senses play here a barely audible second fiddle.”
By the mid-1850s, Venice had become Italy’s second photographic centre after Rome. Numerous photographic studios were opened there, competing with one another. Venetian photography is, above all, a photography of architectural views of the city and its surroundings. Among the favourite subjects of local photographers were gondolas gliding along the Grand Canal, historic palazzi steeped in legend, and storied bridges. Especially popular were topographical views of St Mark’s Square and the Doge’s Palace.
One of the first amateur photographers to create a series devoted to the sights of Venice was the professional painter Domenico Bresolin, who in the early 1850s worked with salt paper prints.
Architectural views of Venice enjoyed extraordinary popularity, and the stylistic tradition established by the Swiss photographer and publisher Carlo Ponti was brilliantly continued by the Italian masters Carlo Naya and Tommaso Filippi. From 1857 onward, Naya’s studio was the most popular in Venice. Later, in the 1870s, after moving to Naples, these photographers also turned to scenes of popular life in Capri and in Abruzzo.
In 1858–1859, General-Admiral Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich undertook a voyage to the countries of the Mediterranean. He invited the amateur photographer Gavriil Ryumin to accompany him. As a result of this journey, the celebrated series of large-format views of southern Italy was created, including photographs of Pompeii.
The photographs of Italy presented in this project convey the unique atmosphere of each region and reproduce the full range of emblematic visual symbols associated with each locality. Yet our contemporary way of seeing, accustomed to the vivid colours of Italian landscapes, requires additional contextual material in order to enter the atmosphere of early photography — that remarkable and detailed “mirror of reality” that existed almost two centuries ago.
In the view of the project’s organizers, such additional material capable of eliciting attentive interest may be found in Italian diary entries, letters, and travel memoirs by nineteenth-century Russian travellers. These texts generously share the impressions, information, and events that accompanied their journeys; in other words, they verbalize the reality captured in the photographs, animate it, and endow the images with possible new meanings.
The travel diary, which occupies an important place in travel literature, was one of the most popular literary genres of the nineteenth century. In addition to its literary and documentary value, the diary also possessed considerable scholarly importance. It served as a kind of repository of material on contemporary history, ethnography, and cultural monuments. At the time when so-called Grand Tours came back into fashion, this literary genre experienced a second life.
As a rule, Russian cultural travellers followed traditional routes — Germany, Austria, France, sometimes adding Belgium, the Netherlands, and the Slavic lands (Poland and Bohemia)—but Italy always remained the principal and indispensable destination.
The project Grand Tour: Italy in Photographs and Memoirs of Nineteenth-Century Russian Travellers includes works by some of the finest representatives of this genre. The travel notes, diaries, and letters of P. V. Annenkov, V. P. Botkin, N. S. Vsevolozhsky, N. V. Gogol, F. M. Dostoevsky, I. N. Kramskoi, and M. P. Pogodin are far more than simple observations on life abroad, geographical impressions, and personal reflections. Kramskoi’s letters, for example, are also remarkable essays on art and contemporary artists. Pogodin’s diary A Year in Foreign Lands occupies an exceptional place among writers’ travel journals.
Last updated on 2.07.2026
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