As early as 1600, the British ambassador to Venice was able to write that “in the matter of trade, the decay is so manifest that all men conclude within twenty years space” the city would all but collapse. Venice had once dominated trade with the east, but was no longer able to compete. Scores of mighty ships “of above 1000 ton apiece” used to bring goods back home or head out to reload; now “not one is to be seen.”[1] It was not long before the city began to reinvent itself, transforming from a commercial powerhouse to a center of lascivious living, a hedonist’s delight. Although the authorities tried to put an end to the wearing of bigger and better jewels, to increasingly ostentatious parties and pleasure-seeking thrills, the city’s reinvention was in many ways understandable: what other choices did it have?[2]

In the place of international commerce and high politics, Venice, Florence, and Rome became stops on a tourist trail for the new rich. Although first referred to as the Grand Tour in 1670, such expeditions began a century earlier, when a trip to Italy was first recognized as presenting an opportunity to buy high-quality antiques, as well as more voguish art, whose prices leapt as the numbers of visitors rose.[3] It was a rite of passage, not just for the individuals who took part but for culture as a whole: the fruits of southern Europe were being devoured by the north. As the continent’s center of gravity shifted, so did the jewels of ancient and contemporary culture. Three of the finest collections of ancient sculptures in the world, held at the British Museum in London, the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, and the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, were gathered by culturally curious travelers who were blessed with deep pockets.[4]

From Peter Frankopan’s The Silk Roads: A New History of the World, London and New York: Bloomsbury, 2016 (first published in 2015), p. 263.

Addendum I (December 26, 2019)

Rereading once again Frankopan’s account of Venice’s propitious turn toward tourism for the new rich, I cannot but remember Pietro Aretino and one of his favorite subjects: prostitution (“La melodia del mondo,” February 17, 1998). In 1500, when Aretino was a youngster, there were close to twelve-thousand prostitutes in the city of a hundred-thousand (“On Prostitution and Conservation of Family Wealth among Venetian Patricians,” May 16, 1995). The best and the brightest among them were known as courtesans, and Veronica Franco was their highly acclaimed queen, for she was appreciated by the cognoscenti as an “honest” courtesan, no less (“Ca’ Venier,” October 14, 1996). Posh salons of the period were teeming with women of this ilk, most of whom were not only literate, but also poets and writers in their own right. Many of them turned to singing and acting in the fullness of time. Predictably enough, courtesans were part and parcel of the tourist craze in the centuries to come. And Venice was well prepared way in advance. Pace Frankopan, but the Grand Tour of yesteryear went well beyond high-quality antiques, no matter how glamorous. Without good old prostitution, Venice would hardly flourish one more time, if ever.

Addendum II (June 16, 2021)

As I have argued over and over again, Venice provides a good model for Europe past its prime (see, e.g., “Like Venice Past Her Prime: A Letter to The Economist,” March 2, 2005). Now that the sub-continent has little to offer in terms of economic wonders, it has turned to tourism as one of its key assets. And tourism worthy of its name is unimaginable without a few dodgy attractions, such as gambling, prostitution, and drugs (see, e.g., “Legalization of Gambling, Prostitution, and Drugs,” May 7, 2014). Concerning prostitution, though, Europe is getting ever longer in the tooth. Just like young men are needed for defense, young women are needed for pleasures of all descriptions (see, e.g., “On the European Defense Union,” Mar 19, 2017). Sooner or later, the women fit for the job would have to be imported from Africa, Asia, and Latin America, which boast of much better demographics for the purpose. Miraculously, this is where international migration may come to Europe’s aid (see, e.g., “On the Pandemic and the World Economy,” December 22, 2020). Although most of the migrants are young men nowadays, young women are soon to follow them. And the Grand Tour may well return to Europe, albeit on a considerably grander scale. Who says the future is bleak? Cut out his lying tongue!

Footnotes

1. Sir Dudley Carleton, “The English Ambassador’s Notes, 1612,” in D. Chambers and B. Pullan, editors, Venice: A Documentary History, 1450-1630, Oxford, 1992, pp. 3-4.

2. G. Bistort, editor, Il magistrate alle pompe nella repubblica di Venezia, Venice, 1912, pp. 403-405, 378-381.

3. E. Chaney, The Evolution of the Grand Tour: Anglo-Italian Cultural Relations since the Renaissance, Portland, Oregon, 1998. For art prices, see F. Etro and L. Pagani, “The Market for Paintings in Italy during the Seventeenth Century,” Journal of Economic History, Vol. 72, No. 2, 2012, pp. 414-438.

4. See, e.g., C. Vout, “Treasure, Not Trash: The Disney Sculpture and its Place in the History of Collecting,” Journal of the History of Collections, Vol. 24, No. 3, 2012, pp. 309-326. See also V. Coltman, Classical Sculpture and the Culture of Collecting in Britain since 1760, Oxford, 2009.