The journal of Montaigne's travels in Italy by way of Switzerland and Germany in 1580 and 1581, Volume 1 (of 3) — Reading Notes

A Diary in Two Hands

The journal's composition is as noteworthy as its content. Up to February 16, 1581, a confidential servant acted as amanuensis, taking dictation and adding his own remarks. Montaigne then dismissed or released him and continued in his own hand. The secretary's sections shift between first and third person, and Montaigne later added marginal notes to the earlier part. This layered authorship creates a text where the observer's voice is sometimes filtered through a second party, and the reader must attend to who is speaking.

Observing Lutheran Worship at Kempten

At Kempten, Montaigne attended a Lutheran service and recorded its details with an ethnographer's eye. He noted the wooden benches with stools for kneeling, the two elderly ministers, and the German psalm sung to music that differed from French usage. After each verse, a new organ responded. When the preacher named Christ, all uncovered themselves. Montaigne later spoke with the minister Johannes Tillianus, asking about a new Lutheran Confession and about the use of images in church. The minister defended images as warnings and examples, not objects of worship.

The Texture of Daily Travel

The journal is filled with concrete details of sixteenth-century travel: the cost of linen, the availability of towels, the traffic of a merchant dealing in a hundred thousand florins annually. Montaigne considered a detour to the canton that supplied linen to all Christendom but calculated it would require four or five hours to cross the lake and return. Such passages reveal the practical calculations behind his itinerary and the economic geography that shaped his route.

Religious Coexistence and Custom

At Isne and Kempten, Montaigne observed a striking anomaly: the Catholic church was sumptuously served despite a lack of worshippers. On a working Thursday, Mass was said at the abbey with organ music and only priests present. He noted that those outside imperial towns were not free to change religion, so many attended the Catholic service on feast days. These observations, set alongside his visit to the Lutheran church, show Montaigne carefully mapping the religious landscape of the Empire.

The Translator's Interventions

W. G. Waters, the translator, explains that he abbreviated or omitted some passages concerning Montaigne's medical symptoms at the baths of Lucca, deeming them valueless and unpleasant. He claims to have suppressed no word of general interest. This editorial choice means the reader encounters a curated text, one that prioritizes the travel narrative over the bodily complaints that occupied much of Montaigne's attention during his cure.

Readers should be aware that the journal is incomplete in its medical sections and that the voice shifts between secretary and author. Pay attention to who is writing and when. The volume offers a close view of how a late Renaissance traveler moved through a divided religious landscape, noting both the grand and the mundane with equal curiosity.

Tucked inside Montaigne’s travel notes, I kept thinking about how he watched strangers—their pews, their soups, their arguments—trying to understand a place through its smallest habits. It felt familiar, almost intimate. That same gentle curiosity surfaced later when I found Society in America, Volume 2 (of 2) — Context and Discussion. Different centuries, yet both are just careful gazes from the outside, learning a country by listening to its daily rhythms.