Pavel Muratov

Born in Bobrov in the Voronezh Oblast into the family of a military doctor, Muratov attended a Cadet Corps and graduated from the Petersburg State Transport University in 1903.

He became friends with the writers Boris Zaytsev, Vladislav Khodasevich, and Nina Berberova (who called him "one of the most remarkable men I ever met"[2]), as well as the artist Nikolai Ulyanov.

In 1927 he moved to Paris, where he contributed to emigre journals and became an art expert for the gallery A la vieille Russie.

In 1939 he emigrated to England, from 1940 living in London; in 1946 he moved to Whitechurch House, his friend WED Allen's estate in Ireland.

As a book on the Italian Grand Tour it not only stands directly in the tradition of Goethe, Gregorovius, Burckhardt and Arthur Symons, but it is better than any of them.