Emilio Cecchi’s Travel to Greece between Arcadian Myth, Modernity of antiquity and Western Intellectual Stereotypes

In 20th century, an increasing number of travelers arrived in Greece, considered as the cradle of Western civilization. However, in some cases we find disappointment in the discovery that the dreamed reality does not exist and then they denigrate the Modern Greek society and landscape. The vision of Greece by Emilio Cecchi (1884-1966), writer, literary critic and art historian, is totally contrary to that thought. He traveled to the Hellenic territory in 1934 and wrote a travel book on this experience, entitled Et in Arcadia ego. This “fanatic of classical antiquity” seems interested only in history, art and literature of classical Greece that exists only in memory, but which continues to live in the landscape. In this article, we intend to analyze this type of approach to underline the stereotypes that are present in Et in Arcadia ego, which is an example of a general ideological tendency not yet disappeared, but which is protracting in our contemporaneity