‘The Grand Tour’ with Simon Rees

The Romantics in Italy

Byron, Shelley, Keats and later Robert Browning travelled in Italy. Keats and Shelley died there.

Mary Shelley, whose mother Mary Wollstonecroft had also travelled in Europe, accompanied Shelley and Byron, and was inspired to write Frankenstein.

Robert Browning, travelling later with his wife, poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning, lived in Florence, Venice and the tiny city of Asolo, often as the guest of aristocratic patrons such as Mrs. Bronson. Inspired by this, Asolando draws on the history of Asolo as the home of the exiled Queen of Cyprus, as well as on the silk industry that still flourishes there.

Suggested Reading List

In the series:
Thurs. Jan. 4: The Eighteenth-Century Grand Tourists in Italy
Mon. Jan. 15: The Romantics in Italy
Mon. Jan. 22: Early Twentieth-Century Writers in Italy