Having shamefully flunked out of college, I never possessed the ideal make-up for a Grand Tourist. My only consolation was that Grand Tourism ended in the late 1800s, when mass-tourism narrowed down the choices of upscale leisure trips. I would have loved to rub shoulders with budding artists and intellectuals completing their education by traveling to Italy and studying the classics. Instead, I now collect what they brought home. The souvenirs of the Grand Tour include model obelisks made in marble, miniature temples of Venus and Vesta, plaster cases of precious gems depicting exquisitely carved classical scenes, emperor's profiles, philosophers, and pudgy little angels called putti. They were the 19th C. ubiquitous museum souvenir, and I find them answering to my two most important criteria; they are wonderful d?cor and all carry a special story.