L’Italie pittoresque between Travels, Narration, History and Fiction: Local Identities Sought and Discovered by the Other

We will analyse the récits de voyage contained in L’Italie pittoresque in order to demonstrate that the diegetization of travel takes place through a mix of history and fiction (mythology, literature, local legends) structured along the double spatio-temporal axis: here-now and here-before. Our target will be to underline that these récits constitute a very important intangible cultural heritage in anthropological terms. These travellers consider travel as a source of intercultural exchanges in a perspective of relativism and share their experiences with the reader who can establish in his turn a dialogical network with the places and the narrations of these texts and create his own adventure between reality and creation.