(c.1690 - 1733), diplomat 'of Middlesex'; Corpus Camb. 1706; sec. at Vienna 1721 - 4; res. Florence 1724 - 33; env. Parma 1731; m. (before 1732) Mary Gumley; d. Pisa.
1717 Leghorn
1724 - 33 [Vienna] Venice (30 Dec. 1724 - 4 Jan. 1725), Padua (12 Jan.), Vicenza (14 Jan.), Piacenza, Parma (Jan.), Florence (by 5 Feb. 1725 - 1728), Rome (Jun. 1728) [England 15 Nov. 1728 - 15 Oct. 1729] Florence (by Oct. 1729 - ), Parma (21 Jul. - 20 Sep. 1731), Florence ( - Aug. 1732 - ), Pisa (by Dec. 1732 - d. 25 Apr. 1733)
Francis Colman was first in Italy in 1717, when he met Philip Stosch in Leghorn.1 He returned in 1724 as British resident to the Tuscan court, a position he occupied for nearly nine years, in which, despite poor health, he showed himself to be both cultured and ambitious.2 En route for Florence, he sat to Rosalba Carriera in Venice on 4 January 17253 (Christie's, 3 Aug. 1795); he also stopped at Padua,4 Vicenza (where he was delayed by illness), Piacenza and Parma.5 Soon after his arrival in Florence his consumption worsened and he became Dr Cocchi's patient and friend.6 He was made a member of the Florentine Academy in the summer of 1727,7 and the following summer he and Cocchi were guided around Rome by Stosch.8 At the time of George II's coronation in 1727 Colman was rebuked for 'acting above his character ... and expecting to be paid for it'.9 He returned to England at the end of 1728 for a year's leave.
He was back in Florence in October 1729. In 1730 he corresponded with G.F. Handel and Owen Swiney over the engagement of Senesino to sing in London, and he became the librettist for Handel's opera Ariadne.(10) In 1730 William Hoare was recommended to him and painted his portrait11 (Christie's, 3 Aug. 1795). In February 1731 Stosch, harrassed in Rome for his spying activities, arrived to place himself under Colman's protection.(12) Later that year Colman was appointed British envoy to Parma, where he spent two months with Cocchi.(13) Joseph Spence first heard improvvisatori recite at Colman's house in Florence in 1732.14 In August 1732 he was too ill to accompany his friend Bubb Dodington from Florence to Rome, and by December he had moved to Pisa for the air.15 He died there on 25 April 1733 ('reduced by a consumption to a perfect skeleton') and his embalmed body was sent to England (the entrails buried in the Protestant cemetery at Leghorn).16 He left a wife, Mary, and his considerable library was sold to Tom Osborne (bookseller in Gray's Inn), a catalogue being published in 1738.
After her husband's death Mary Colman remained in Florence until September 1733, when she left for England with her children George (1732 - 94) and Caroline, travelling via Bologna and Turin.17 George, in part taking after his father, became the successful dramatist and theatre manager.
1. Lewis 1961, 87, 88. 2. Horn, 1:80. 3. SP 98/25 (Colman, 30 Dec. 1724). Sani 1985, 785. 4. Brown 1766. 5. SP 98/25 (Colman, 14, 25 Jan.). 6. SP 98/25 (Colman, 13 Feb. 1725). T. Hodgkinson, VAM Bull., 3[1967]:2, 75. 7. SP 98/29 (RBF note). 8. SP 85/16 (Walton, 12 Jun. 1728). Hodgkinson (at n6). 9. Wal.Corr., 21:534. 10. R.B. Peake, Memoirs of the Colman Family, 17. 11. Peake (at n10), 21. 12. Lewis 1961, 87 - 8. 13. Horn, 1:77. 14. Spence Anecdotes, 2:567 - 8 (no. 1519). 15. Peake (at n10), 31. 16. Horn, 1:80. SP 98/32, f.521 (Walton, 25 Feb. 1733). 17. SP 98/34 (Skinner, 13 Sep. 1733).