Abstract

In the XIXth century, the images of Ancient Rome, Rome of the Renaissance and Christian Rome were renewed by accounts of the extraordinary variety of destinations travelers visited to study monuments and artworks, as well as by a policy which, in France, could be readily summed up in the polemical term of "ultramontanisme". A visit to Rome became both a desire for faith and the desire to enjoy the spectacle of the world, resulting in a kind of tension that characterised modern leisure trips.