The articles in this volume delineate not only the appropriation of Italy by foreign travellers worshipfully communing with the spirit of the places they visited, but also inquire to what extent a degree of friction in the encounter with this Mediterranean Mecca has led to productive results for artists, composers and writers. Thus it is not the 'transfer of ideas' between two countries and intellectual traditions that looms largest here but the active engagement with Italy and its reflection in artistic terms.