Newton, Henry
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- Newton, Henry
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(1651 - 1715), diplomat, judge and antiquary, e. s. of Henry Newton of Highley, Essex; St Mary Hall Oxf. 1665; DCL Merton Oxf. 1678; chanc. to the diocese of London 1685 - ; m. 2 Mary Manning; env. Florence 1704 - 11 and Genoa 1706 - 11; FRS 1709; Kt. 1715.
1705 - 11 Venice (13 Mar. 1705), Padua (17 Mar.), Florence (1 May 1705 - ), Genoa (19 Sep. 1706 - 19 Jun. 1707), Florence, Genoa (Dec. 1707), Florence (by 12 Apr. 1710), Rome (Feb. 1711), Florence (1 Mar.), Genoa (8 Apr. - 17 May), Turin (by 23 May), Mantua (5 - 6 Jun.), Verona
Appointed British envoy in Tuscany in 1704, Newton arrived in Venice, from Germany, on 13 March 17051 and was in Padua on the 17th.2 On 1 May he was in Florence.3 One of his earliest tasks was to protect the appointment of a Protestant chaplain for the English merchant colony at Leghorn, which had aroused Papal opposition. Newton remonstrated with the Grand Duke in Florence and only a threat from London of armed intervention resolved the situation. The first chaplain, Basil Kennett, arrived in December 1706 and officiated in Newton's house.
In 1706 Newton was sent on a special mission as envoy extraordinary to Genoa, in order that he might ascertain the neutrality of that state during the Spanish wars. He arrived on 19 September and stayed until 19 June 1707. He was again in Genoa in December 1707 but, though he remained envoy extraordinary, he apparently returned only once more to the city to take his formal leave, arriving on 8 April 1711 and departing on 17 May.4
A diplomat noted for his urbanity and eloquence (DNB), who once advocated the formation of a league of Italian Princes to 'liberate' Italy,5 Newton also maintained cultural and antiquarian interests. In 1710 he published in Amsterdam his Orationes (delivered in Florence 1705 and Genoa 1707) and, in Lucca, the Epistolae, Orationes et Carmina, a volume dedicated to his lifelong Oxford friend, Lord Somers. For him, Newton negotiated the dispatch of two cases of pictures from Leghorn, the bill dated 29 June 1707, and he was later instrumental in the purchase of some twenty volumes of drawings from the Resta collection which he brought back to England for Somers in 1711.6 This collection was discussed by Newton with John Talman, one of several distinguished antiquarians with whom he became particularly friendly;7 others included Ficoroni8 and Magliabecchi. Newton maintained a correspondence with Pope Clement XI and was made a member of the Accademia della Crusca (DNB). He sat to William Aikman in 17109 and his medallion portrait was cast by Soldani in 1709 (example with Heim in 1966); in 1711 he obtained permission from the Grand Duke for Soldani to make four copies in bronze of antique statues, including the Medici Venus and Dancing Faun, for the Duke of Marlborough.(10)
On 1 March 1711 Newton returned to Florence from Rome, where he had gone 'towards the latter end of the Carneval', and he took his official leave from the Tuscan court on 11/12 March 1711 (John Molesworth succeeding him on 20 March).(11) He was in Turin on 23 May,12 and in Mantua on 5 June, when he wrote to Kennett 'tomorrow I am for Verona & so farewell to faire Italy'.8
1. SP 98/22 (Newton, 13 Mar. 1705). 2. Brown 1237. 3. Horn, 1:78. 4. P. Castignoli in Inglesi a Livorno, 111. Horn, 1:73 - 4. 5. D.B. Horn, Great Britain and Europe in the 18th century, 350. 6. See C. Gibson-Wood, JWCI, 52[1989]:168 - 9, 173. 7. I. Pears, Oxford Art Jnl. , 5:1 [1982]:28. 8. Lansd.1041, f.163 (5 Jun. 1711). 9. Skinner, Scots in Italy, 30. 10. See H. Honour, Connoisseur, 141 [1958]:226n9. 11. Waters jnl.MSS. 12. SP 92/2 (Chetwynd, 23 May 1711).