In 1777 the "Mercure de France" published a notice of a publication in six volumes: Tableaux picturesque, moraux, politiques, litteraires de la Suisse et de l'Italie. The promoter of this initiative is an influential figure from the court of Louis XVI Jean Benjamin de Laborde, (writer, musician, author and curator of splendid art editions) first valet de chambre of Louis XVI, Receiver General of Finances and therefore "Fermier General ", his wife was Marie Antoinette's lady-in-waiting. He died on the guillotine in 1794. The plan of the work included the first part dedicated to Switzerland, the second and third to Rome, the fourth to Naples and the Kingdom, the fifth to Genoa, Modena, Parma and Lucca, the sixth to Venice, Milan and Savoy. The beginning of the publication of the work took place in the first half of 1777 with the first three notebooks dedicated to Switzerland. But perhaps because the time was not ripe, the public did not respond well to this succession of somewhat monotonous views of Switzerland, the immediate retreat was for a publication dedicated to Italy starting with the Kingdom of Naples. Already in the brief presentation included in the first issue, de Laborde (unlike the news reported in the "Mercure") envisaged the extension to the entire kingdom including Sicily, and also gives the names of the artists and engravers who were entrusted with the creation of the plates: Fragonard, Robert, Cochin, Paris, Chatelet, Desprez, Bertaux, etc. he also warned the subscribers that in 1778 "the issues will be published every three or four months while starting from 1779 the frequency will be monthly". Only in 1780 was the first volume completed, which included 16 files for a total of 125 tables, each accompanied by a descriptive text. At this point, perhaps due to growing financial difficulties or perhaps because he was tired given the enormity of the undertaking, de Laborde sold his shares to Saint-Non (and his brother) from whom he had already asked for advice and collaboration for the drafting of the table texts. First of all, with a brilliant intuition, Saint-Non changed the project, limiting it only to the Kingdom of Naples and immediately afterwards stopped publishing in installments. On the basis of the ready material and his travel diaries made in Southern Italy in 1761 he began the volume publication and prepared the text of the first two volumes (of the "Voyage") in which he inserted the ready-made tables of de Laborde, where the narrative required it (for this reason in these first two volumes the numbering is not consecutive while in the other three it is). The other brilliant intuition is to dedicate an important part to Sicily given the interest aroused by the works of Winckelmann, Houel, Swinburne and others published in the second half of the 18th century. Having no material on Sicily, he decided to send the artists of the Academy of Rome (who had already partly collaborated with de Laborde) who, under the direction of Dominique Vivant Denon, carried out the drawings necessary for the creation of the plates. P.S. The tables from Switzerland were later used in the work “Tableaux De La Suisse, Ou Voyage Pittoresque...” edited by Laborde himself and by Beat Fidel Zurlauben and printed in Paris by the same publisher (Clousier) and with the same typographical characteristics as the “Voyage” of Saint – Non.