Two sixteenth-century French writers and their Italian adventures

An illustrated talk by David Hartley.

16th January 2025 at 19:15 at Fountainhall Church Centre (formerly Rubislaw Church Centre), 1 Beaconsfield Place, Aberdeen AB15 4AB

The poet Joachim Du Bellay travelled to Rome in the mid-1550s in the entourage of his relative Cardinal Jean Du Bellay, a diplomat attached to the court of the French King Henri II. The opportunity to visit the Eternal City made him the envy of his fellow Pléiade poets, but the reality was personal and cultural disappointment. However, his Italian experiences inspired the poetry by which he is best know to us, the Regrets and the Antiquitez de Rome.

Thirty years later, the essayist Michel de Montaigne also travelled to Italy. Partly motivated by the wish to know other cultures and customs, he was also seeking relief from the kidney disease which troubled him in middle age, seeking treatment in a number of spas on both sides of the Alps. His Journal de Voyage – initially dictated to a servant, then continued in his own hand – constitutes the record of his travels.