Armitage, Whaley
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- Armitage, Whaley
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(1767 - 1855), s. and h. of Robert Armitage, merchant of Liverpool; L.Inn 1785, called 1794; Trin. Camb. 1786; m. 1796.
1790 - 1 [dep.London Jun. 1790] Turin (27 - 29 Sep. 1790), Milan (1 - 3 Oct.), Parma (5 Oct.), Modena (6 Oct.), Bologna (6 - 8 Oct.), Florence (10 - 12 Oct.), Siena (12 Oct.), Rome (16 Oct. - 12 Mar. 1791), Naples (16 Mar. - 1 Apr.), Sicily [and Malta] (3 Apr. - 6 May), Tropea (10 May), Paestum (14 May), Naples (16 - 18 May), Rome (21 - 26 May), Spoleto, Foligno (27 May), Perugia (28 May), Florence (30 May), Pisa (4 Jun.), Leghorn (5 Jun.), Genoa (10 - 15 Jun.), Parma (22 Jun.), Mantua (23 Jun.), Vicenza (25 Jun.), Padua (26 Jun.), Venice (28 Jun. - 1 Jul.) [Cologne, 10 Dec.]
Immediately after leaving Oxford Armitage spent a year in Italy, and his travel journal (Armitage jnl.MSS) reflects a serious if conventional curiosity. In Turin his eyesight was 'fatigued' by the 'regularity' of the streets; in Parma his enjoyment of Correggio was tempered by the constant sight of priests and beggars. Modena was the 'handsomest' city he had then seen in Italy. In Bologna he was most struck by Giambologna's Neptune, exemplifying 'strength joined with activity'. In Florence he found the Pitti was being repaired, but he was entranced by the Uffizi: 'if I see nothing else in Italy my journey is amply repaid by this one glorious sight'. He reached Rome on 16 October, staying first at Margherita's hotel before moving after two days into 'lodgings'. He met Thomas Jenkins and attended the conversazioni of Cardinal de Bernis (to whom he had delivered a letter from Lord Lansdowne), but his most regular companions were Giles Stanley (the British consul at Trieste) and his wife. In the Borghese Gardens he recognised two English artists, Turner and Hall (who now defy identification), and he was also to meet in Rome the artists John Frearson (whom he called Freeston), William Theed and Robert Freebairn (whom he called Fairbairn). He twice visited Mastralini, a wax modeller who had made a portrait of Emma Hart (later Hamilton).
Amongst his observations on antiquities Armitage remarked that eleven of the heads on the Arch of Titus were modern, owing, his cicerone explained, to 'a theft committed in the night by some English amateurs of antiquity'. Apart from virt?, Armitage took dancing lessons from Alexandrini and employed an Italian master; he discussed classics and mathematics with learned Jesuits and read Ariosto, Bentivoglio's Letters and Virgil, besides Burke's Reflections on the French Revolution which appeared while he was in Rome. He did not leave for Naples until the Carnival had begun, an 'incomprehensible festivity this to an Englishman'. In Naples he saw Sir William Hamilton's Etruscan vases and pictures, a collection which he thought exceeded 'by far [that of] the King of Naples'. In April and May 1791 he went on to Sicily and Malta accompanied by Walsh, 'a young Irish gentleman whose father lives in the County of Meath', and the journal contains some sketches of the temples near Agrigento. On his return Armitage went overland through Calabria to Paestum and Naples. He made, it appears, few purchases, but he mentioned buying three pieces of marble in Naples and engravings of the 220 self-portraits in the Uffizi in Florence. His tour also had its lighter moments: near Naples his servant conducted him to 'a bordello for sailors' when he had asked for a coffee house, and at Spoleto he was able satisfactorily to delay one Carolina from taking the veil in a convent at Gubbio, afterwards presenting her with a silver bottle case.