As the author of Italy and the Grand Tour (New Haven, 2003), a book on a similar topic based on many of the same sources, I was slightly sceptical when I saw the title of this work as I wondered whether it had already all been done, not least as there was already an excellent book on Venice, the subject of one of Professor Sweet's chapters, namely Bruce Redford's Venice and the Grand Tour (New Haven, 1996). However, I am happy to report that Sweet's work, while not always original, succeeds, offers much of interest and provides a well-considered, worthwhile and ably written approach to the subject. There is, for example, a thoughtful and judicious account of the sources and the problems of interpretation they pose. A high level of interdependence and intertextuality in the literature of eighteenth-century travel is discerned. Moreover, as Sweet notes, there are issues with the works not intended for publication. For example, journals were a demonstration of the wide reading and erudition that would confirm the writer's reputation for taste and judgment.

Sweet's approach is essentially by place, Florence, Rome, Naples and Venice, each providing the basis for chapters that are then used in order to discuss particular themes. As a result, it is possible to understand how a particular city was viewed and experienced, and, in doing so, to look at the gender and social background of the visitor. There is, also, after the introduction, a second type of introduction offered by a chapter on ‘Experiencing the Grand Tour’, while the cities are followed by an interesting chapter on ‘Medievalism on the Grand Tour’, before the conclusion. The medievalism section is somewhat eccentric to the book as, despite the significance of seeing, describing and popularizing the Gothic, it is less significant than some of the topics that would have repaid chapter-length attention.

Sweet presents the Grand Tour as playing an important role in the construction of British elite masculinity, providing the opportunity to display the key qualities of taste, virtue and judgment, both through the activity of sight-seeing and through the reflective performance of writing. Indeed, Sarah, dowager-duchess of Marlborough, reflected in 1727 ‘what a sad thing it is for men that had an opportunity of knowing everything that is valuable to be able to talk of nothing but hunting’. However, as Sweet valuably shows, in practice the Grand Tour was neither exclusively masculine nor confined to the aristocratic elite. The chapters on the individual cities helpfully note changes in cultural and intellectual sensibility, but this feature could have been improved by adopting a chronological approach for the book as a whole. For example, Sweet helpfully points out the impact on the perception of Rome of changes in British religious culture which became particularly marked towards the end of the eighteenth century, with the rise of evangelicalism and moral reform. As she notes, the cynicism of Conyers Middleton, the worldly tolerance of Hume and the scepticism of Gibbon were replaced by a piety that placed greater emphasis on accounts of the testimony offered by early Christians in Rome. She is spot on, but it would have been useful to have this change considered as part of a more general chapter on the closing decades of the period. Nevertheless, this is a valuable work that deserves attention.