Foreign guests at the home of Vieusseux in Florence in the mid-nineteenth century 

di Monica Pacini
in Memoria e Ricerca n.s. 46 (2014), p. 47

This article questions the role played by the Grand Ducal Florence as a destination for travel and stays of foreign people in the Forties of the Nineteenth century. The starting point is a list of foreign guests who attended cultural events at the home of the Genevan merchant-editor Giovan Pietro Vieusseux at Florence. It analyses the geographic origins, the socio-professional status, the reasons and trajectories of these stays abroad in order to highlight the changes taking place in the cultural tradition of travelling to Italy in the Europe of the national states. Moreover, it focuses on the effects of these stays in terms of bilateral trade, commercial and cultural transfers between the places of departure and the places of travel destination. Keywords: Florence, Nineteenth Century, Foreign visitors from Europe, Vieusseux Home, Trajectories of travelling, Commercial and cultural transfers