ABSTRACT
In the later nineteenth and earlier twentieth centuries a large number of English-language histories, travel narratives and guide books were written on the cities of medieval and Renaissance Tuscany, as well as of the rest of the Peninsula, the Veneto and the Italian Riviera being other ‘favoured’ areas. These books were aimed at the general public and the traveller or tourist, both armchair and real. Many of them remained in print for decades, going through many editions, often serving as introductory sources for English speakers starting their research on Tuscany, even after the Second World War. I first encountered them 25 years ago when I began my study of Siena. To anyone reading them as introductions to their subjects, and as pleasant supplements to Baedeker-style guidebooks, they presented colourful anecdotes and bits of information about these cities and their surrounding countryside; however, they could also set the tone of interpretation for decades to come. Their stories and observations often had a basis in reality and were not all ‘well-found’. They were and have remained interesting reading, perhaps best appreciated in poorly lit hotel rooms, after passing the day under the sun and after pleasant meals and a certain amount of Chianti or Brunello, or in a rain-soaked London or Boston. At the same time, however, many of their early interpretations of, and assumptions about, Tuscan and Italian society influenced later historians of these cities and regions, whatever their nationalities and in whatever languages their books appeared.
