Victorian travellers, Apennine landscapes and the development of cultural heritage in eastern Liguria, c. 1875-1914

This article, which focuses on Italian Apennine landscapes in the northern region of Liguria, investigates late nineteenth-century travel from the perspective of historical ecology. It argues that travellers' observations and reflections can be rich sources for landscape history, and that trave...

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Main Author: Balzaretti, Ross
Format: Article
Published: Wiley 2011
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/1947/
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author Balzaretti, Ross
author_facet Balzaretti, Ross
author_sort Balzaretti, Ross
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description This article, which focuses on Italian Apennine landscapes in the northern region of Liguria, investigates late nineteenth-century travel from the perspective of historical ecology. It argues that travellers' observations and reflections can be rich sources for landscape history, and that travel writing is therefore a worthwhile source for ecologists. However, travel writing was a conflicted genre torn between such realistic visions of landscape and more common aesthetic ones, as contemporary views of the perceived picturesqueness of coastal Liguria demonstrate. Historians of travel have been much more interested in 'aesthetic travellers'. in part because the meaning of travel for identity construction is a more fashionable topic among historians tha ecology. Policymakers at both UNESCO and the EU have unfortunately espoused a visions of 'cultural landscape' based on aesthetics. Instead a more precise understanding of how past societies created landscapes through practice is essential if these are to be maintained in the future.
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spelling nottingham-19472020-05-04T20:23:02Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/1947/ Victorian travellers, Apennine landscapes and the development of cultural heritage in eastern Liguria, c. 1875-1914 Balzaretti, Ross This article, which focuses on Italian Apennine landscapes in the northern region of Liguria, investigates late nineteenth-century travel from the perspective of historical ecology. It argues that travellers' observations and reflections can be rich sources for landscape history, and that travel writing is therefore a worthwhile source for ecologists. However, travel writing was a conflicted genre torn between such realistic visions of landscape and more common aesthetic ones, as contemporary views of the perceived picturesqueness of coastal Liguria demonstrate. Historians of travel have been much more interested in 'aesthetic travellers'. in part because the meaning of travel for identity construction is a more fashionable topic among historians tha ecology. Policymakers at both UNESCO and the EU have unfortunately espoused a visions of 'cultural landscape' based on aesthetics. Instead a more precise understanding of how past societies created landscapes through practice is essential if these are to be maintained in the future. Wiley 2011-10 Article PeerReviewed Balzaretti, Ross (2011) Victorian travellers, Apennine landscapes and the development of cultural heritage in eastern Liguria, c. 1875-1914. History, 96 (4). pp. 436-458. ISSN 1468-229X http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-229X.2011.00528.x/full doi:10.1111/j.1468-229X.2011.00528.x doi:10.1111/j.1468-229X.2011.00528.x
spellingShingle Balzaretti, Ross
Victorian travellers, Apennine landscapes and the development of cultural heritage in eastern Liguria, c. 1875-1914
title Victorian travellers, Apennine landscapes and the development of cultural heritage in eastern Liguria, c. 1875-1914
title_full Victorian travellers, Apennine landscapes and the development of cultural heritage in eastern Liguria, c. 1875-1914
title_fullStr Victorian travellers, Apennine landscapes and the development of cultural heritage in eastern Liguria, c. 1875-1914
title_full_unstemmed Victorian travellers, Apennine landscapes and the development of cultural heritage in eastern Liguria, c. 1875-1914
title_short Victorian travellers, Apennine landscapes and the development of cultural heritage in eastern Liguria, c. 1875-1914
title_sort victorian travellers, apennine landscapes and the development of cultural heritage in eastern liguria, c. 1875-1914
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/1947/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/1947/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/1947/