The Alhambra and the Peninsular War: William Gell and the British in Spain, 1808-1814

Why did William Gell (1777–1836), already well known for journeys through the landscapes of Homeric Greece, travel to Spain and Portugal during the Peninsular War? The journey seems unlikely for two reasons: historians assume that British travellers avoided Iberia, which was not incorporated into an Italocentric Grand Tour; and we presume that war was an obstacle to civilian travel and cultural exchange. This chapter uses Gell’s Spanish and Portuguese notebook (held at the British School at Rome) to question these assumptions, and to explore ways of reassessing British engagement with Iberia.

First, we establish that the presence of the British army on the Iberian Peninsula in fact encouraged travellers and created a public appetite for their writings. Civilian observers such as Gell provide some valuable insights on the war and its impact on Spanish society. Secondly, we investigate the growing interest of British travellers and readers in the Islamic past. For Gell, this meant deep engagement with the buildings and history of the Alhambra, well before the so-called Romantic “discovery” of the monument in the 1820s and 1830s. He would return to his notebook in these later decades, with the intention of publishing amid an increasingly romanticised, orientalised view of Spain.

This is the authors' accepted manuscript version of the chapter.