(1764 - 1839) of Mount Edgcumbe, Corn., o. s. of 3rd B. Edgcumbe (cr. E. of Mount Edgcumbe 1789); educ. Harrow and Ch.Ch. Oxf. 1781; MP 1786 - 95; m. 1789 Ldy. Sophia Hobart, dau. of 2nd E. of Buckinghamshire; sty. Vct. Valletort 1789 - 95 when suc. fa. as 2nd E.
1777 Florence
1784 - 5 Venice (by 19 May 1784), Padua [Paris, summer] Genoa (autumn), Leghorn, Florence, Rome, Naples, Rome (Easter 1785), Mantua (by 11 May 1785), Reggio [England, summer 1785]
Richard Edgcumbe appears in Zoffany's Tribuna (Windsor), as a thirteen-year-old boy watching Charles Loraine Smith sketching; this is the only evidence for a visit to Italy in 1777.
In 1784 - 5 he was in Italy with De Soyres 'a young French protestant of a very good gentleman's family'.1 Edgcumbe's prime interest was in music and his Italian tour was subsequently described in his Musical Reminiscences (1824, 28 - 37). He had 'just arrived' in Venice on 19 May2 for the Feast of the Ascension and William Assheton saw him there that month.3 He attended concerts given entirely by women (concealed from view) in the Conservatorio dei Mendicanti, which he considered the best of the four musical academies then in Venice. In Padua he heard, and received hospitality from, the aging Guadagni (who had sung in England before 1771). Edgcumbe then passed the summer in Paris, returning to Genoa in the autumn. He found the opera indifferent in Genoa and Florence. In Rome, where no woman was permitted on the stage, he noted five theatres open, of which two were for serious opera. Naples had 'a thorough good opera' and two theatres for comic opera, but during Lent there was nothing but sacred drama. He was in Rome for Holy Week in 1785 and was much impressed with the singing in the Pope's chapel and with the grand mass at St Peter's on Easter Sunday, sung without accompaniment. He attended the opera in Mantua with Lord Grey de Wilton on 11 May 1785,4 and the last music he heard in Italy was Sarti's opera Medante at Reggio (performed without the main part since the singer was indisposed). He returned to England in the summer of 1785. 'Upon the whole', he concluded, 'I was surprised at hearing so little very good ... and still more so at the extreme badness of much which I have passed over unnoticed'.
1. Wal.Corr., 25:518. 2. Hall jnl.MSS 6325, f.57v. 3. Assheton list MSS. 4. Grey jnl.MSS 1.