The Art of Travel (1500-1850) database

The emergence in the early modern period of an extensive body of advice on the art of travel (the Ars apodemica) – produced across a range of genres – represents a remarkable historical effort to shape a disparate practice. Despite the impressive volume of contributions to this wide discursive field (including writings by such eminent figures as Lipsius, Montaigne, and Bacon), the subject matter remains underappreciated and the bibliographical scope (and limits) of the range of works in this domain insecure. Our purpose in creating a database of sources has been to offer new precision in the identification of relevant texts and to draw attention to the density and extent of these influential contributions.

The Art of Travel, 1500-1850 database (http://artoftravel.nuigalway.ie) aims to recover and reconstruct the transnational genre of travel advice literature, exploring its intellectual and cultural contexts, and illustrating its lasting importance. We hope to set a new paradigm for the discussion of travel advice writing, expanding the area of study, providing new research tools for scholarship and stimulating studies of previously neglected materials.

This project builds on foundational bibliographies by Uli Kutter, Justin Stagl, Luigi Monga, Edward Godfrey Cox, and others, which established the Ars apodemica as a field of study. Our database extends the work of these predecessors in scope, detail, and the use of digital materials and facsimiles. This database provides researchers with biographical, bibliographical, and contextual descriptions, relevant scholarly references, and cross-references to other works, as well as direct links to digital reproductions of specific texts.