Barrett, Thomas
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- Barrett, Thomas
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(1717 - 86), o. s. of Richard Barrett of Belhus, Essex, by Anne Lennard, suo jure Bs. Dacre; suc. gd.-fa. 1725; educ. Harrow; L.Inn 1734; m. 1739 Anna Maria Pratt (d. 1806); FSA 1745; suc. mo. 1755 as 17th B. Dacre and changed name to Barrett-Lennard.
1749 - 51 Genoa (summer 1749), Viareggio, Leghorn, Lucca, Pisa, Florence (Jul. - Oct.), Siena (Nov.), Rome (Nov. 1749), Naples (by Jan. - Mar. 1750), Rome (Mar. - 23 Apr.), Venice (May - Jun.), Florence (Jun./Jul. - Sep.), Rome (winter 1750 - 51), Naples (spring 1751), Rome [England autumn]
Barrett travelled with his wife and his sister-in-law, Caroline Pratt (afterwards Baroness of Munster). They left England shortly after the death of the Barretts' only child, Anne Barbara, in March 1749, partly to distract them from their loss and partly for Thomas Barrett's health (he was a hypochondriac according to Horace Walpole). Their itinerary and Barrett's observations are contained in his letters addressed to his wife's brother-in-law, Nicholas Hardinge.1
They reached Genoa in the summer of 1749 and stayed for two weeks before continuing by sea to Viareggio. They visited Leghorn, Lucca and Pisa, where Barrett described the 'Gothick Cloister' round the Campo Santo 'painted by the best Masters of those old times when ye art of Limning began to revive again & tis extreemly curious to observe the Stile of Painting and their Strange imaginations, and ye mixture of good things & bad'. He was exceptionally interested in the gothic. They had arrived in Florence by the last week of July, bringing a letter of introduction from John Chute to Horace Mann, who settled them in a house and held a conversazione in their honour. In August Mann accompanied them to the baths of Pisa, which Barrett had found beneficial; Mann was teaching Mrs Barrett ('vastly agreeable') and her sister Italian 'a very innocent and agreeable employment', but he wished he could persuade Mr Barrett 'that he is not so ill as he thinks'.2 In Florence Barrett sent back to England his two Swiss servants who made 'unjust and Extravagant claims' upon him, and he made friends with the Frescobaldi family (to whom he revealed their ancestor's connection with Thomas Cromwell). His letters dwell on the paintings, buildings, and sculpture; the buildings on the Ponte Vecchio 'are by much too low & too narrow. Ye Bridge being a very old one, & tis indeed a thousand pity's that all ye Houses on it are not pulled down'; he was 'quite transported' by the Tribuna, in which the Raphael St John in the Wilderness disappointed and the Venus de Medici exceeded his expectations. He was particularly impressed with Giambologna's Apennino at Pratolino, 'ye boldest and noblest design I ever saw'.
The Barretts remained in Tuscany until November 1749, when they set out for Rome and Naples; they visited Siena on their way and spent a night at an inn at Radicofani, which they found so foreboding that they locked their doors 'with certain Bolts & Skrews we carried from England for that purpose'. They reached Naples by the new year (1750) and remained until March. They then spent some six weeks in Rome viewing the antiquities, before setting out on 23 April to Venice for Ascension.3 In June or July they returned to Florence but, perhaps because of his attentions to Mrs Barrett, their relationship with Mann cooled through the summer.4 From Florence, Barrett visited Vallombrosa, more to satisfy his correspondent Hardinge's curiosity than his own; they found a 'fairy Country w'ch is quite seperated from ye rest of ye World'. In the same letter Barrett wrote from Florence (12 Sep. 1750) of his plans for the following months: 'My present scheme is to go to Rome ye end of next month & there to pass ye winter; in ye spring I meditate my [2nd] excursion to Naples and after passing a fortnight or three weeks there shall return back to Rome to pack up my things & make ye best of my way thro' Germany to ye Spaw & so come to England in ye Autumn [1751]'. Edward Thomas mentioned attending Mrs Barrett's conversazioni in January 1751.5 It was presumably during the winter of 1750 - 1 that each sat to Batoni, who also painted a touching portrait of them watching over their deceased daughter, her features taken from a portrait by Hudson (Clark/Bowron 133, 133A, B; priv. colls.). Pancrazi dedicated a plate in his Antichita Siciliane [1751 - 2], to 'Tomaso Lennard Barrett', perhaps indicating that Barrett had visited Sicily from Naples. He may also have been the 'Mr. Barret' in Reynolds's Parody of the School of Athens, painted in Rome in 1751 (NGI).6
1. Barrett-Lennard MSS (28 Oct. 1749 - 12 Sep. 1750). 2. Wal.Corr., 20:91 - 2, 105, and see 75ff. 3. L. Dickins and M. Stanton, An 18th century Corr., 166 - 7. 4. Wal. Corr., 20:173, 194. 5. Thomas letters MSS, f.33 (6 Jan. 1751). 6. O'Connor 1983, 11.