“We are all pilgrims who seek Italy.” As Goethe’s poem notes, with the popularization of the Grand Tour in the 18th century, il bel paese became the quintessential destination and few could help succumbing to the search for the ideal of beauty in its architectures. A fascination which made its rovine, chiese, and palazzi recurring motifs in narratives, engravings, and paintings. And which spurred many to chronicle their walks through the streets of Rome, Venice or Florence, making the travel journey of Italy a genre of its own.

In the second half of the 20th century, mass tourism and the democratization of photography changed the profile of travelers as well as the medium, but not the background, and the country was idealized even more. Luigi Ghirri tried to demonstrate that the boot is more than what postcards show, and in the 1980s, with Gianni Leone and Enzo Velati, he decided to smash clichés and rebuild the nation’s image, inviting twenty compatriots to assert the everydayness of their habitat. The result was an exhibition that changed many a way of seeing, and a book that is now a collector’s item.

Little has improved since: globalization and the low-cost travel industry multiply visitor numbers, journals are shot by ‘influencers,’ and monuments are locations for ‘selfies.’ The proliferation of views has reduced Italy to a sequence of snapshots all remember and want to capture. Hence the importance of this re-edition of the catalog, preserving the original aura. May this call to order make at least some deviate from the itinerary of their guided tour.