Dupaty’s Lettres sur L’Italie

Abstract

Senttmentalism with its emphasis on feeling, emotion, intuitive and even subconscious states of mind (an emphasis that was later expanded by the Romantics) had considerable influence on the conventional travel memoir. Charles Dupaty’s Lettres sur L’Italie en 1785 combines objective reportage with lyrical subjectivity. This work, well known in its time, has not deserved the oblivion to which posterity has consigned it. Under the convenient disguise of letters to his family, Dupaty, the distinguished jurist, embraces a variety of subjects that extend far beyond landscapes and tourist attractions. (A lengthy enumeration of curiosities, no matter how meticulous, can not but prejudice the literary quality of the genre.) Dupaty gives dramatic and thoughtful descriptions of paintings, statues, and landscapes, but he also enriches the narrative with perceptive evaluations of the social and legal conditions in the Italian city-states. He also occasionally intersperses prose descriptions of nature with verse quotations, some which are his own translations of the Latin Elegaic poets.¹