Travel, modernity and rural landscapes in nineteenth century Liguria

New roads and later railways were essential for the modernisation and rapid economic development of North-western Italy in the early nineteenth century. The new routes also encouraged an increasing number of foreign travellers to visit the region. They opened up fresh tracts of countryside and provi...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Piana, Pietro, Watkins, Charles, Balzaretti, Ross
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Cambridge University Press 2018
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/51197/
_version_ 1848798440048295936
author Piana, Pietro
Watkins, Charles
Balzaretti, Ross
author_facet Piana, Pietro
Watkins, Charles
Balzaretti, Ross
author_sort Piana, Pietro
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description New roads and later railways were essential for the modernisation and rapid economic development of North-western Italy in the early nineteenth century. The new routes also encouraged an increasing number of foreign travellers to visit the region. They opened up fresh tracts of countryside and provided novel viewpoints and points of interest; many travellers took the opportunity to record these views with topographical drawings and watercolours. In this paper we make use of some of these views to examine how the modernized transport routes released new places to be celebrated by tourists and became themselves features and objects of especial interest and comment. We examine the works of three artists, one English and two Italian, who depicted landscapes of contrasting rural Ligurian landscapes. Their drawings and prints are contextualised and interpreted with maps, field data, archival documents and contemporary descriptions of roads and railways by travellers and in guidebooks.
first_indexed 2025-11-14T20:19:48Z
format Article
id nottingham-51197
institution University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus
institution_category Local University
language English
last_indexed 2025-11-14T20:19:48Z
publishDate 2018
publisher Cambridge University Press
recordtype eprints
repository_type Digital Repository
spelling nottingham-511972018-10-01T12:50:56Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/51197/ Travel, modernity and rural landscapes in nineteenth century Liguria Piana, Pietro Watkins, Charles Balzaretti, Ross New roads and later railways were essential for the modernisation and rapid economic development of North-western Italy in the early nineteenth century. The new routes also encouraged an increasing number of foreign travellers to visit the region. They opened up fresh tracts of countryside and provided novel viewpoints and points of interest; many travellers took the opportunity to record these views with topographical drawings and watercolours. In this paper we make use of some of these views to examine how the modernized transport routes released new places to be celebrated by tourists and became themselves features and objects of especial interest and comment. We examine the works of three artists, one English and two Italian, who depicted landscapes of contrasting rural Ligurian landscapes. Their drawings and prints are contextualised and interpreted with maps, field data, archival documents and contemporary descriptions of roads and railways by travellers and in guidebooks. Cambridge University Press 2018-10-01 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/51197/1/Travel%20modernity%20and%20rural%20landscape%20for%20Rural%20History%20160418.pdf Piana, Pietro, Watkins, Charles and Balzaretti, Ross (2018) Travel, modernity and rural landscapes in nineteenth century Liguria. Rural History, 29 (2). pp. 167-193. ISSN 1474-0656 https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/rural-history/article/travel-modernity-and-rural-landscapes-in-nineteenthcentury-liguria/10657BFEA00933A8E3471F52B386E25D doi:10.1017/S0956793318000079 doi:10.1017/S0956793318000079
spellingShingle Piana, Pietro
Watkins, Charles
Balzaretti, Ross
Travel, modernity and rural landscapes in nineteenth century Liguria
title Travel, modernity and rural landscapes in nineteenth century Liguria
title_full Travel, modernity and rural landscapes in nineteenth century Liguria
title_fullStr Travel, modernity and rural landscapes in nineteenth century Liguria
title_full_unstemmed Travel, modernity and rural landscapes in nineteenth century Liguria
title_short Travel, modernity and rural landscapes in nineteenth century Liguria
title_sort travel, modernity and rural landscapes in nineteenth century liguria
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/51197/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/51197/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/51197/