The Phlegraean and Neapolitan landscape in Prosper Barbot’s drawings

Abstract

Between the end of the eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth century, the south of Italy becomes one of the central destinations of the Grand Tour, travelers and foreign artists tell the landscape through the drafting of travel reports and drawings that give back an image of the places often changed over time. In particular, the territory of Campania and above all the city of Naples and the adjacent Phlegrean territory, exerts a certain charm that translates into the creation of real works of art. The work of the French architect and landscape painter Prosper Barbot is part of this context, thanks to two trips undertaken at the beginning of the XIX century, he draws up a corpus of drawings in which, through a technique that is anything but static, shows an image of the places visited completely new and personal. Through the selection of some of these designs, the paper intends to illustrate how the author’s gaze and interest have outlined the image of urban environments and spaces related to the Phlegrean and Neapolitan context.