Book-Buying and the Grand Tour: the Italian Books at Belton House in Lincolnshire By
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03 Brundin & Roberts:Layout 1 19/02/2015 14:27 Page 51 Book-Buying and the Grand Tour: the Italian Books at Belton House in Lincolnshire by ABIGAIL BRUNDIN AND DUNSTAN ROBERTS Downloaded from ritish gentlemen who went on tour to Continental Europe in the early modern period were famously acquisitive: numerous studies Bhave charted the arrival in the British Isles of goods from the Grand http://library.oxfordjournals.org/ Tour. Furniture, artworks, fashion, foodstuffs, and other items both large and small were painstakingly packed and carried across the Continent to adorn the town and country residences of the English aristocracy.1 Italy was a particularly fertile source of acquisitions. In his general history of the Grand Tour, Christopher Hibbert provides an extensive list of the souvenirs that the average tourist would attempt to obtain in the major Italian cities: books of prints, medals, maps, paintings and copies of paintings at Rome, as well as scent, pomatums, bergamot, imperial oil, and acqua di millefiori; snuff-boxes and silk from Venice; glasses from Murano; swords, canes, soap and rock-crystal at University of Cambridge on June 2, 2015 from Milan; mosaics of dendrite, and amber, musk and myrrh from Florence; point lace, sweet-meats and velvet from Genoa; snuff and sausages from Bologna; fire- arms from Brescia; milled gloves from Turin; masks from Modena; spurs and toys from Reggio nell’Emilia.2 Hibbert points out that the acquisition of specific items in specific locations was often recommended by the eighteenth-century guidebooks, and slavishly followed by tourists as they made their way north en route for home. The authors are extremely grateful to the many people whose input contributed to the genesis and writing of this article, especially: Peter Hoare, who shared so much of his own unpublished research with us, as well as his encyclopaedic knowledge of the library at Belton House; Mark Purcell who supported the project from the outset and was generous with his time and expertise; the house staff at Belton House and at Lincolnshire Archives for all kinds of practical assistance; and, in Cambridge, Jason Scott-Warren and the Centre for Material Texts. We are also very grateful to the anonymous peer reviewers, whose comments have improved our work in numerous ways. Research for this article was funded by the University of Cambridge and the Arts and Humanities Research Council. 1 See Edward Chaney, ed., The Evolution of English Collecting (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003); Mark Girouard, Life in the English Country House: A Social and Architectural History (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1978), pp. 171–80. 2 Christopher Hibbert, The Grand Tour (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1969), p. 165. More recent bibliography on the phenomenon of early-modern tourism can be found in Edward Chaney and Timothy Wilks, The Jacobean Grand Tour: Early Stuart Travellers in Europe (London: IB Tauris, 2014); and Rita Mazzei, Per terra e per acqua: Viaggi e viaggiatori nell’Europa moderna (Rome: Carocci, 2013). The Library, 7th series, vol. 16, no. 1 (March 2015) © The Authors 2015; all rights reserved 03 Brundin & Roberts:Layout 1 19/02/2015 14:27 Page 52 52 The Italian Books at Belton House in Lincolnshire Notably, apart from the ‘books of prints’ to be bought in Rome, no other kinds of book make it into Hibbert’s list of desirable purchases. This seems like something of an oversight when we consider that contemporary guide - books often contained, alongside advice on where to acquire certain luxuries, ample instructions on the purchase of books abroad and their subsequent shipment back to England. Robert Dallington’s A method of travell, first printed in London in about 1605, includes detailed, practical advice on travelling with books. He advises against bringing many books from home on the trip (‘let them be few or none’) due to the risks of incur - ring local taxes or unwanted inquisitorial attention. Better, Dallington Downloaded from advises, to buy what is needed on the spot, particularly as continental pub- lishers were likely to stock much material not available in England, and then arrange to ship the books home at the end of the trip.3 Dallington’s advice finds a parallel in a late-seventeenth-century book on European affairs of state, Li segreti di stato de i prencipi dell’Europa rivelati. The author advises http://library.oxfordjournals.org/ ‘Protestant gentlemen travelling in Catholic countries’ to avoid carrying books if possible, ‘in order to avoid risk of censure, for if the Inquisitor finds them he will be obliged to seize the books . and what is more, much time will be lost in their examination, since the Inquisition wishes to know every - thing in detail’.4 Instead, any books that were needed could be bought on location in Italian cities, although the author advises the use of a good local guide in order to avoid being fleeced. Given the attention to book-buying in the contemporary literature sur - rounding the Grand Tour, it seems safe to assume that this activity formed at University of Cambridge on June 2, 2015 an important part of a gentleman’s programme while he was abroad. Yet the rich and varied literature produced in the wake of Hibbert’s study continues to be insufficiently attentive to book-buying as a tourist activity.5 This omis - sion is not altogether surprising, given the practical impediments to the subject’s study. The purchase of books can be difficult to track, and tour 3 Robert Dallington, A method of travell (London: Thomas Greede, [?1605]), fp. civ. See Pamela Selwyn and David Selwyn, ‘“The Profession of a Gentleman”: Books for the Gentry and the Nobility (c. 1560 to 1640)’, in The Cambridge History of Libraries in Britain and Ireland: Volume 1, To 1640, ed. by Elisabeth Leedham-Green and Teresa Webber (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 489–519 (pp. 497–98). 4 ‘Cavalieri protestanti Che viaggiano in Paesi Catolici’: ‘[P]er non correre il pericolo di qualche censura, perche se l’Inquisitore il penetra sarà obligato di pigliar i Libri, . oltre che converrà perdere lungo tempo all’esame, volendo l’Inquisitione saper distintamente ogni cosa’; Gregorio Leti, Li segreti di stato de i prencipi dell’Europa rivelati, da varii confessori Politici, per lo beneficio comune di tutti quelli che maneggiano affari publici, e per la sodisfatione de’ più Curiosi . Parte Secondar ([?Geneva]: Antonio Turchetto, 1673), p. 22. 5 Notable exceptions are the studies of Henry Newton, later Puckering, who travelled to Italy in 1636–7 and left clear traces of his book purchases in the Wren Library at Trinity College, Cambridge; and Thomas Coke (1697–1759), 1st Earl of Leicester, who acquired books on his European travels which formed the basis of his fine library at Holkham in Norfolk. See David McKitterick, ‘Adding to the Family Library: an Englishman in Italy in the 1630s’, in Biblioteche private in età moderna e contemporanea: Atti del convegno internazionale, Udine, 18–20 ottobre 2004, ed. by Angela Nuovo (Milan: Sylvestre Bonnard, 2005), pp. 105–15; and D. P. Mortlock, Holkham Library: A History and Description (The Roxburghe Club, 2006), esp. pp. 35–68. 03 Brundin & Roberts:Layout 1 19/02/2015 14:27 Page 53 Abigail Brundin and Dunstan Roberts 53 accounts which record the purchase of books rarely specify their titles. Travel accounts do still offer the possibility of assessing the amount of overall expenditure on books, thus giving us a sense of the relative impor - tance of this activity but, in order to understand the role of books in the Grand Tour more fully, one must turn to other types of archival evidence. For instance, María Dolores Sánchez-Jáuregui has recently surveyed the book collections of English tourists being shipped home to England on the merchant ship Westmorland, when it was captured by the French in 1779. She successfully identified groups of books that had been collected by English gentlemen tourists and were on their way home to private libraries, and Downloaded from which are now in the library of the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid.6 Sánchez-Jáeregui’s work reveals the insights to be gained from working on unusual sources and underlines the importance of book-buying on the Grand Tour.7 Information about book-buying and the Grand Tour can also be gained http://library.oxfordjournals.org/ from the private libraries that wealthy travellers amassed before, during, and after their journeys around Europe, libraries that bear the imprint of time spent abroad in the kinds of books bought, their provenance histories and (if we are lucky) the marks of use they have gathered over time. Collections of books that have remained in situ in the libraries for which they were origi - nally intended constitute an invaluable resource for reconstructing the passage of books from continental Europe into the homes and minds of the English aristocracy, not least because these books are far more likely to have 8 ‘preserved their layers of historic evidence’. It is a commonplace that scho - at University of Cambridge on June 2, 2015 lars and readers in the early modern period were fascinated by Italy and its cultural heritage, both classical and contemporary. The private libraries of the aristocracy allow us to see English, early modern ‘Italophilia’ in greater definition, establishing what was being bought and imported from Italy, and what was actually being read and absorbed in aristocratic households.9 A further benefit of studying private libraries is the opportunity which it offers for considering the reach of the Italian material acquired, beyond the gentle men tourists themselves to a wider circle of family members, friends, and acquaintances who had the opportunity to consult and use the material in the library of a great house.