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SIR THOMAS ISHAM AN ENGLISH COLLECTOR IN ROME IN 1677–8

1960; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 15; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1179/its.1960.15.1.1

1748-6181

Gerald Burdon,

Travel Writing and Literature

It is a sign of the growing popularity of the Grand Tour that in 1677 the use of foreign travel was publicly debated at Oxford. Among the English travellers then in Italy was Sir Thomas Isham (1657–81), third baronet of Lamport in Northamptonshire, who had been a gentleman commoner at Christ Church in the previous year. As he had already been enjoying the pleasures of Rome for six months, he was probably amused rather than disconcerted to read in a letter from the agent in charge of his estate at home that ‘One of ye prime questions at ye encaenia in Oxford: was whither travelling be good for English Gentlmn.’ Sir Thomas had left England in October, 1676, when he was nineteen, with his twenty-five-year-old cousin the Reverend Zacchaeus Isham as his tutor, on a tour of Italy, Switzerland and France which was to last over two and a half years. About seventeen months (December, 1676-May, 1678) were spent in Italy—nearly a year longer than the time which English tourists normally devoted to the giro d'ltalia within the space of onewinter, spring and early summer. Nor was the itinerary of Sir Thomas and the Revd. Zacchaeus the conventional one through Marseillesand down the west coast of Italy to Florence and Rome. Their route lay through Paris, Lyons and Mont Cenis to Turin and Milan, and thence, with a detour which took in Cremona, Mantua and Este, to Padua and Venice. There they made their first long stay, paying ‘For 45 Dayes Dyet at Venice’ in February and March, 1677. They then set out for the object of their pilgrimage and, travelling through Padua once, more and through Bologna, Cesena, San Marino, Rimini, Ancona and Spoleto, arrived in Rome early, in April. After a few days they left for Naples, where they recorded a payment for ‘9Dayes Dyet’ in their account book, and returned to Rome in the first days of May. Here and at Frascati where he took a house Sir Thomas remained for the next ten months (May, 1677-March,1678).