Go See It
Real things, and where to find them.
Everything we write about points at something you can actually look at. Here is all of it in one place, sorted by how far you'd have to go.
On the street
Still standing. You can walk up and touch the stone.
The Col du Mont-Cenis
Savoie, France. The D1006 climbs from Lanslebourg (Val Cenis) to the pass and the lake, open in summer.
From “Why Did Everyone Hate Mountains Until About 1750?”Capo Miseno
The headland at the western tip of the Bay of Naples, near Bacoli. A short bus or taxi ride from Pozzuoli.
From “The Letter That Named a Kind of Volcano”The villas of Stabiae
Castellammare di Stabia. Villa Arianna and Villa San Marco, part of the Pompeii archaeological park and much quieter.
From “The Letter That Named a Kind of Volcano”Pompei, on the Circumvesuviana line from Naples
From “The Letter That Named a Kind of Volcano”The Corn Exchange clock
The Exchange, Corn Street, Bristol, by the entrance to St Nicholas Market
From “The Clock With Two Minute Hands”The gate of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, London
From “The Clock With Two Minute Hands”Porta del Popolo and the Piazza del Popolo
Rome. Metro line A to Flaminio, which leaves you just outside the gate.
From “Under the Porta del Popolo”Claife Viewing Station
The west shore of Windermere, above the ferry landing near Far Sawrey. National Trust, free.
From “The Mirror You Looked Into With Your Back to the View”The Gran Cono crater trail, Vesuvius
Vesuvius National Park, above Ercolano. Timed tickets sold online only, up to 30 days ahead.
From “The Ambassador Who Kept Climbing the Volcano”Herculaneum and Pompeii
Ercolano and Pompei, on the Circumvesuviana train from Naples
From “The Ambassador Who Kept Climbing the Volcano”The Balmat and Paccard monuments
The centre of Chamonix, by the river Arve. Balmat stands with Saussure, pointing up at the summit, and Paccard has his own statue nearby, looking up at the mountain.
From “Meanwhile, 1786”George Town, Penang
Malaysia. The town Francis Light founded in 1786, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
From “Meanwhile, 1786”
In a museum
Behind glass, but real. Check that it's on display before you travel.
The Venus de' Medici in the Tribuna
Uffizi Gallery, Florence. Since the 2012 restoration you look in from the doorways instead of walking through.
From “The Most Beautiful Statue in the World (Allegedly)”Canova's Venus Italica
Palazzo Pitti, Florence, a short walk across the Ponte Vecchio
From “The Most Beautiful Statue in the World (Allegedly)”Musée de la Pyramide du Mont-Cenis
By the lake at the pass, about 15 km from Lanslebourg. Open in summer.
From “Why Did Everyone Hate Mountains Until About 1750?”Turner, Snowstorm, Mont Cenis (1820)
Birmingham Museums Trust
From “Why Did Everyone Hate Mountains Until About 1750?”Heinz Nixdorf MuseumsForum, Paderborn, Germany. Among the early automata.
From “The Chess Machine With a Man Inside”Via del Corso 18, Rome. A few hundred steps down the Corso from the gate. Tuesday to Sunday, 10:00–18:00.
From “Under the Porta del Popolo”Tischbein, Goethe in the Roman Campagna (1787)
Städel Museum, Frankfurt
From “Under the Porta del Popolo”Victoria and Albert Museum, London. British Galleries, Room 120.
From “The Mirror You Looked Into With Your Back to the View”Beatrix Potter's picture letter to Noel Moore, 4 September 1893
The Morgan Library & Museum, New York. The letter where Peter Rabbit was born.
From “Before Envelopes”Holbein, Portrait of the Merchant Georg Gisze (1532)
Gemäldegalerie, Berlin
From “Before Envelopes”Mary, Queen of Scots' last letter, 8 February 1587
National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh. Fragile and only rarely shown.
From “Before Envelopes”Campi Phlegraei, a complete coloured copy
Society of Antiquaries of London, Burlington House
From “The Ambassador Who Kept Climbing the Volcano”19 New King Street, Bath. The townhouse where Caroline and William lived before they moved to Slough, and where William found Uranus in 1781.
From “Meanwhile, 1786”
Online
Scanned, transcribed and free. You can look from the sofa tonight.
Zoffany's Tribuna of the Uffizi
Royal Collection Trust (RCIN 406983)
From “The Most Beautiful Statue in the World (Allegedly)”Smollett's Travels through France and Italy (1766)
Project Gutenberg. Letter XXVIII is the grumpy Florence one.
From “The Most Beautiful Statue in the World (Allegedly)”Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto IV
Project Gutenberg. Stanzas 49–53 are the Venus.
From “The Most Beautiful Statue in the World (Allegedly)”Horace Walpole's letters, including the wolf
Project Gutenberg
From “Why Did Everyone Hate Mountains Until About 1750?”Thomas Gray's letters from the Alps, 1739
The Thomas Gray Archive, University of Oxford
From “Why Did Everyone Hate Mountains Until About 1750?”Pliny's letters to Tacitus (Melmoth's translation)
Project Gutenberg. The two Vesuvius letters are Book VI, letters 16 and 20.
From “The Letter That Named a Kind of Volcano”Edgar Allan Poe, "Maelzel's Chess-Player" (1836)
The Poe Society of Baltimore's online texts
From “The Chess Machine With a Man Inside”Kempelen's 1783 letter to Benjamin Franklin
Founders Online (US National Archives)
From “The Chess Machine With a Man Inside”Science Museum Group collection
From “The Clock With Two Minute Hands”Goethe's diagram of Italian hours
Italian Journey, Verona, September 1786 (Project Gutenberg)
From “The Clock With Two Minute Hands”Goethe's Italian Journey (Morrison translation)
Project Gutenberg, free
From “Under the Porta del Popolo”Piranesi's Veduta della Piazza del Popolo, full resolution
The Metropolitan Museum's open-access print, via Wikimedia Commons
From “Under the Porta del Popolo”Gainsborough's sketch of a man with a Claude glass
British Museum collection online (Oo,2.27). Not usually on display.
From “The Mirror You Looked Into With Your Back to the View”Claude Lorrain mirrors in the Science Museum Group collection
Including the shagreen-cased glass once believed to be John Dee's magic mirror
From “The Mirror You Looked Into With Your Back to the View”MIT Libraries. Videos showing how hundreds of historical letters were folded and locked.
From “Before Envelopes”Vincent van Gogh's letters, with the sketches he drew into them
vangoghletters.org (Van Gogh Museum and Huygens Institute). Free, transcribed and translated.
From “Before Envelopes”The Darwin Correspondence Project
Cambridge University Library. More than 15,000 letters to and from Charles Darwin.
From “Before Envelopes”All the plates of Campi Phlegraei, in colour
Houghton Library scans, via Wikimedia Commons
From “The Ambassador Who Kept Climbing the Volcano”Burns's Kilmarnock edition, scanned
Search the National Library of Scotland's digital gallery for "Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect"
From “Meanwhile, 1786”
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