Richard Lassels (also Lascelles) (–1668) was a Roman Catholic priest and a travel writer. Lassels was a tutor to several of the English nobility, and traveled through Italy five times. He is best known for his work, The Voyage of Italy, or a Compleat Journey through Italy, published in Paris in 1670. In his book, he asserts that any truly serious student of architecture, antiquity, and the arts must travel through France and Italy, and suggested that all "young lords" make what he referred to as the Grand Tour in order to understand the political, social, and economic realities of the world. Lassels was the younger son of a Catholic gentleman, William Lascelles of Brackenborough in Yorkshire, and grandson of Sir Thomas Lascelles, a member of the council of the north; his mother was Elizabeth Tunstall, youngest daughter of Sir Francis Tunstall of Thurland Castle, Lancashire, and Anne Bold (from whom Richard and his brothers derived their religious alias ‘Bolds’). About 1623, Lassels followed two of his brothers abroad to be educated in the Southern Netherlands at Douai College; Thomas and John Lassels had both been there since 1618 and were ordained as priests in 1624 and 1625 respectively. In May 1626 Richard was sent with a group of students to Paris, probably because of the plague. According to Anthony Wood he was 'an hospes for some time' at Oxford, 'as those of his persuasion have told me, but whether before or after he left England they could not tell'. Back at Douai he was teaching grammar in 1629 (the year when a third brother, Ralph Lassels, also arrived at the college) and syntax a year later. Richard was ordained priest there on 6 March 1632. Almost certainly he was the author (under his alias of Richard Bolds) of The Conviction of Noveltie, and Defense of Antiquitie (1633), a slim duodecimo by 'R.B. Roman Catholicke, and one of the English Clergie, and Mission'. It is likely that he returned to England briefly, on the mission to reconvert his compatriots, after his ordination. In 1633 Lassels returned to Paris, however, where he was employed first by the Catholic bishop in exile, Richard Smith, and then by Smith's patron, Cardinal Richelieu, as Latin secretary. In 1637 he saw through the press at Paris his Latin translation, Epistola historica de mutuis officiis (dedicated to Charles I), of Smith's work, then visited Rome, probably