From 1660 to 1840, wealthy young Europeans (mostly British) spent months traveling through Italy as the culmination of their education. They invented tourism. You’re following their route.
Plan a history trip →Cross the Alps at Mont Cenis or Brenner → Turin (first Italian city) → Milan (Last Supper) → Venice (Carnival) → Florence (art education HQ, British community at Via Tornabuoni) → Rome (the destination — months spent studying ruins, collecting art, sitting for portraits) → Naples (Pompeii, newly excavated from 1748) → sometimes Sicily (Goethe went in 1787).
Goethe (1786–88): wrote "Italian Journey." Byron: lived in Venice, swam the Grand Canal. Shelley: died in a shipwreck off Viareggio (1822). Keats: died in a room at the foot of the Spanish Steps (26 Piazza di Spagna, now the Keats-Shelley House, €6). Stendhal: overwhelmed by Florence’s beauty ("Stendhal Syndrome" named after his experience at Santa Croce).
Keats-Shelley House, Rome (€6). British Cemetery, Florence (free, where Elizabeth Barrett Browning is buried). Caffè Greco, Rome (since 1760, where Grand Tourists gathered). Caffè Florian, Venice (since 1720). Pompeii (the Grand Tour’s greatest discovery). The route itself — Turin–Milan–Venice–Florence–Rome–Naples — is still the classic Italian itinerary.