Between specialisation and encyclopaedic knowledge

This chapter is about the changing perspectives of German travel culture in the age of Enlightenment. ¹ I will highlight the transformation and adaptation that the classical, late-seventeenth-century Kavalierstour had to undergo to meet the intellectual settings of Enlightenment culture on the basis of one selected journey or rather travel account. ² As to the actual purposes of going abroad, my analysis will reveal the seemingly opposing agendas of a growing need for professionalisation ³ or rather professional specialisation, on the one hand, and the demand for wide-ranging, encyclopaedic knowledge collecting, on the other. ⁴ Moreover, I will show how travellers who were heavily influenced by Pietism opened up new fields of investigation in long-familiar travel destinations.