(1683 - 1750), divine, antiquarian and controversialist; Trin. Camb. 1700; m. 1 1710 Mrs Sarah Drake (d. 1731), 2 1734 Mary Conyers (d. 1745), 3 1747 Anne Powell; DD 1717; Cambridge U. lib. 1721.
1723 - 4 Turin, Genoa, Florence, Rome (by 20 Nov. 1723 - 24 Mar. 1724), Naples (Mar.), Rome ( - 22 Apr.), Padua (13 May)
In poor health and after a long and public controversy with the Master of Trinity, Middleton went off to Italy. In his Letter from Rome [1729] (concerning pagan beliefs and ceremonies within the Catholic church) he described his route to Italy through Lyons, Turin, Genoa and Florence. He had arrived in Rome by 20 November 1723; on 24 March 1724 he had left for Naples, and on 22 April he left Rome to return home with Coulson Fellowes and Colonel Folliott.1 They were in Padua on 13 May.2
Middleton may have been the 'Mitilto Inclese eretici' living in the Strada Paolina in Rome in 1724.3 He was said to have lived rather grandly in Rome to demonstrate his academic importance and he also bought 'antique curiosities'.4 These antiquities, Middleton explained to Horace Walpole, were not collected 'out of any regard to their beauty or sculpture, but as containing what the Italians call some erudition in them'.5 Walpole bought his collection in 1744. Middleton's medallion portrait was made by Giovanni Pozzo at Rome in 1724 (BM). It has been said he went to Italy with Lord Coleraine, who arrived in Rome a month before him; they were there at the same time and both collected antiquities, but Middleton left Rome six months before Coleraine.
1. SP 85/14 and SP 85/15 (Walton). 2. Brown 1744. 3. AVR sa, S.Lorenzo in Lucina. 4. Nichols, Lit.Anecdotes, 5:410 - 11. 5. Wal.Corr., 15:15; his collection described 14 - 16.