Nick Trend has been a travel writer and editor for more than 30 years (on The Daily Telegraph, where — full disclosure — I was lucky enough to work with him). He is also an art historian, who has worked on the curatorial staff of the National Gallery in London. In a new series of books, the “Art of Travel”, he combines his two passions, celebrating both artists and the places where they lived and worked.

In the first, Italy: In the Footsteps of the Great Artists (Thames and Hudson, £50), he follows Caravaggio navigating the mean streets of 17th-century Rome, Canaletto painting super-sized postcards for Grand Tourists in 18th-century Venice, and Giotto hard at work in the Bardi chapel in medieval Florence. Over 12 chapters, he features 21 artists and 23 destinations, in a sumptuously produced work that’s designed for the coffee-table rather than the backpack. Photographs of landmarks and details from artworks combine with specially commissioned maps for each chapter, with hand-drawn vignettes, by the illustrator Cassandre Montoriol. It’s a book, Nick says, that he hopes will inspire travels, whether in the comfort of an armchair or later on in Italy. In forthcoming titles, he will be taking us to France, Japan, Spain, Britain and the United States.