Anglo-Italian cultural relations before and during the long Eightenth Century

This introduction sketches some of the key factors and moments in Anglo-Italian contact from the Roman occupation of Britain to the emergence of the Grand Tour in the seventeenth century as a channel for cultural interchange. It then indicates some of the changes that occurred in the nature of that interchange during the eighteenth century. These are explored in the ensuing essays, whose subjects range from the impact in Italy of the writings of Hobbes, through the motivations and prejudices of British travellers to the peninsula, to the reciprocal journeys to England of Italian painters and art dealers.