Born in 1986, Manfredi Gioacchini picked up his first camera at 15. Four years later, he left his native Rome to attend university in London, and then it was on to America, where he found work as a photographer in New York City and Los Angeles; his subjects were architecture and nature, and he took portraits. Gioacchini was not interested in his home country. “I would hardly ever return to Italy,” he says.
Five years ago, however, Gioacchini did return to Italy—specifically, to his family’s country house, in Bagnoregio. It was the spring of 2020, and he would quarantine there during the early months of the coronavirus pandemic.
As the Italian government lifted travel restrictions between regions, Gioacchini began thinking about one of his favorite books, Goethe’s Italian Journey—a memoir of the German writer’s two years of travel from Verona all the way to Sicily, from 1786 to 1788. Gioacchini decided to embark on his own Grand Tour.
In his most recent coffee-table book, named for the mind-expanding, 18th-century cultural tour, Gioacchini documents his travels from the south of Italy during the summer (Naples, Sorrento, Anacapri, Ponza) to the north in the fall and spring (the Dolomites, Lake Como, Venice, Positano).
He offers images of flowering gardens, sun-drenched ruins, sun-damaged murals, statues sharp in detail, scenic lakes, mountain ranges, and eerily empty beaches and city centers. The book begins with an introduction by Gianluca Longo, the style director at The World of Interiors, and has an epilogue by the photographer Corrado Benigni. In between, along with the photographs, there’s an essay by Gioacchini.
Gioacchini’s Grand Tour is one of echoes, reverberations, and recollections. “In order to truly see Italy,” Benigni writes, “the author had to distance himself from it, spending long periods abroad.” Distance, yes, but you can’t erase your past. Gioacchini responds, “I realized that for me, this wasn’t going to be the beginning of a journey, but rather a return.”
When I ask him where his Grand Tour ended, Gioacchini tells me, “It never ends.” He was just in Parma, and he plans to continue traveling across Italy, dedicating books to specific themes such as mosaics, gardens, and interiors, because there is so much good material. I wonder if he must leave again, to return once more. —Carolina de Armas
Carolina de Armas is a Junior Editor at air mail
