Pis’ma russkogo puteshestvennika, 1797). In this typological sense both books have to be seen as masterpieces of a great importance as for the history of Russian literature, taste and the models of social behavior. But despite of this and more over the real success of the numerous new editions of Images of Italy among the Russian public, the book and its author have been routinely ignored in the mainstream histories of Russian literature, both in Russia and abroad. This clearly attests to the inertia and solidness of the Russian literary canon and its resistance to any transformation.