Bruce, James
- Dictionary and Archive of Travellers
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- Bruce, James
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(1730 - 94), traveller, s. of David Bruce of Kinnaird; suc. fa. 1759; educ. Harrow; m. 1 1754 Adriana Allan (d. 1754), 2 1776 Mary Dundas; cons. Algiers 1763 - 5.
1762 - 3 Turin (15 Jul. 1762), Parma, Bologna, Rome (Aug. - Sep.), Rome (Sep.), Leghorn, Florence (Oct. - Dec. 1762), Naples (Jan. 1763), Paestum, Rome, Florence, Leghorn (Mar.) [Algiers, 20 Mar.]
1773 - 4 Bologna, Florence (Oct. 1773), Rome (Nov. - Dec. 1773), Florence (by 7 Jan. 1774), Venice (by 29 Jan.)
James Bruce, the explorer of Africa, loomed rather larger than life to his contemporaries. He was, said Fanny Burney, 'the tallest man you ever saw in your life - at least gratis', and Zoffany thought him 'the wonder of his age'. By 1760 Bruce had become a man of independent means (through the mineral resources of his Kinnaird estate) and in 1763, having regard to his wide interests in languages and antiquity, he was appointed British consul in Algiers where, it was thought, he could record the classical remains. His passage out was leisurely and he spent nearly a year in Italy studying antiquities, making copious notes as he went. His movements were described by Alexander Murray in his preface to Bruce's Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile. Bruce came to Turin on 15 July 1762 and went directly to Rome. There he became a friend of Andrew Lumisden and sat to Batoni (Clark/Bowron 257; Broom Hall) who, he told his fianc?e, Margaret Murray of Polmaise, was 'the best painter in Italy'; he was having a miniature copy made 'by the best painter of miniatures in Italy, who is a lady [Victoria Stern]'.1 He visited Leghorn but was back in Rome in September, and 'the three following months he spent chiefly in Florence' developing his skill as a draughtsman. He also acquired some views of the ruins at Paestum, drawn by a Spanish officer, which led him to conceive an illustrated publication of that still unfamiliar site. By January 1763 Bruce had been ordered to Naples to await further diplomatic instructions. He suggested to the British ambassador there, Sir James Gray, that he might write a description of Paestum, but Gray declined while encouraging Bruce to go there himself. Bruce duly crossed the difficult marshland to Paestum and surveyed the three Doric temples. He returned to Rome and then to Florence, where he prepared his publication. He engaged Zocchi to design a frontispiece and Robert Strange to engrave his drawings. But in March Bruce was instructed to sail to Algiers from Leghorn and his Paestum project receded. Some of the material he gathered, together with a notebook of his Italian travels, is now in the YCBA (further drawings and manuscripts remain at Broomhall).2
Although he was himself a competent draughtsman, Bruce had asked Andrew Lumisden to find an artist willing to accompany him in Africa.3 George Dance, Stern and d'Estang were unwilling, but the young Bolognese artist Luigi Balugani accepted, joining Bruce in Algiers by July 1765 (and later meeting his death in Abyssinia in February 1771).4
Bruce returned from Africa in 1773, landing first in Marseilles in March. Later that year he decided to return to Italy to try the baths at Poretta, his health not fully recovered after his African adventures. He was also anxious to find Italian artists to complete the drawings he had brought back with him from his explorations, but here he met with some initial difficulties, being accused in Bologna of maltreating Balugani.5 He also discovered that his fianc?e had come out to Italy but, despairing of his return, had married the marchese Accaromboni - with whom Bruce subsequently had a robust correspondence, see Margaret Murray. These incidents apart, Bruce was lionised in Italy. In Florence in October Horace Mann presented him to the Grand Duke,6 and on 4 December he received an audience from the Pope.7 By 7 January 1774 he was back in Florence, intending to set out for England the next day (he was elected to the Accademia del Disegno on 13 January).8 Meanwhile there had been time enough at Florence for him to sit to Zoffany for inclusion in the Tribuna (Windsor). By 29 January he was in Venice.9
Mann said that the Pope had given Bruce a series of his gold and silver medals,10 and he also brought back for the King a case from Lord Cowper, containing the miniature pictures of painters in the Grand Duke's Gallery. These gifts, and the quantity of drawings from his travels, led him to ask Lord North (through Zoffany and Sir Joseph Banks) if his artistic baggage could pass unmolested through the English custom house.(11) In London Bruce's accounts of his adventures were generally considered 'more wonderful than those of Sinbad the Sailor and perhaps as true'.(12)
1. Clark/Bowron 257. 2. Notes by M. McCarthy. 3. Lumisden letters MSS (2, 6, 9 Feb., 13 Jul. 1765). 4. See P. Hulton et al., Balugani's Drawings of African Plants, New Haven [1991]. 5. Notes by B. Skinner from E. Chiovenda, Atti della Reale Accademia d'Italia, ser. 7, 2[1940]:7, and E. Panzacchi, Vita Italiana, [1896 - 7]. 6. Gazz.Tosc. (Florence, 30 Oct. 1773). 7. Lewis 1961, 234. Bologna, 14 Dec. 1773 (sub Rome 4 Dec.). 8. Coke Letters, 4:290 (7 Jan. 1774). Wynne 1990, 537. 9. Bologna, 1 Feb. 1774 (sub Venice, 29 Jan.). 10. Lewis 1961, 234. 11. Whitley, 1:295 - 6. 12. HMC Charlemont, 1:322.