From the Grand Tour to the Virtual Tour: Dreaming of the Classical Between Past and Present

Abstract.

The purpose of this essay is to investigate the various reasons, not only cultural, for the attraction that pushed many great philosophers and intellectuals – from Winckelmann to Goethe, from Vischer to Freud up to Henrich – to travel toward the South, in particular to Italy and Greece, to visit the mythical places of the origin and the classical. Another tendency will also be considered that of “non-travel” that interested both Winckelmann – who never reached Greece – and Hegel, who approached the South mainly through erudite and virtual approximations. The objective is therefore to take stock of the need to travel from the countries of the North to the Mediterranean: from the times when travel was a risky adventure for a few, to the turning point of the 1840s when, following the construction of the main railway lines in Europe, the South became closer and was looked upon with disenchantment, up to the trivialisation of classic places in over-tourism. Paradoxically, the sudden and abrupt turn of “non-tourism” caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has brought back into vogue the virtual tourism already practised by German intellectuals, for example by Hegel himself, and perhaps, unwittingly, has increased the desire to reach the South, contributing to the dreaming of southern lands, which suddenly became too far away for many.