Marche seen and thought

"Between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Le Marche was not part of the Grand Tour that often brought wealthy foreigners to visit Italy. They had other places to visit, starting with Venice, Florence and Rome. Nonetheless, many foreign visitors did come this far and sometimes they left a written record documenting their impressions and the emotions that they experienced in the course of their travels. We find a brief description by Hans Christian Andersen of his arrival in Ancona, or impressions of their travels in Le marche by people such as Andrè Gide, Madame de Stael, Michel de Montaigne, and Percy Bisshe Shelley. Italian writers too, of course, have left vivid accounts of their journeys, whether they were natives of Le Marche or had lived there, or whether they simply came as occasional visitors.
This volume collects the most significant of the many literary testimonials to this region, alongside a generous selection of pictorial tributes. Classic "views", those in which the main subject of the picture is the countryside represented in the work, were intentionally not considered for inclusion.
With few exceptions, included for the sake of completeness, there are no "views" at all; besides, a person interested in finding such pictures will easily locate them by title and theme in art museums. We decided instead to devote the space almost exclusively to Le Marchelandscapes that can be glimpsed in the backgrounds of works on a wide range of subjects." Claudio Nardini.