Perceval, Sir John, 5th Bt
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- Perceval, Sir John, 5th Bt
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(1683 - 1748), 2nd. s. of Sir John Perceval, 3rd Bt. of Burton, Co. Cork; suc. bro. as 5th Bt. 1691; educ. Westminster and Magd. Oxf. 1699; FRS 1701; m. 1710 Catherine Parker; MP 1703 - 15 [I], 1727 - 34; cr. B. Perceval [I] 1715, Vct. Perceval [I] 1723, E. of Egmont [I] 1733; co-founder of the colony of Georgia 1732.
1706 - 7 [dep. England Jul. 1705] Padua (9 Oct. 1706), Venice, Rome (by Jan. - 23 Mar. 1707), Florence (28 Mar. - ), Leghorn, Genoa (Apr.), Turin (two weeks) [England Oct. 1707]
Perceval's tour of Italy1 lasted little more than six months, in the course of which he bought and commissioned works of art intended for 'the use of an accademy of painters which he purposed to forward the erecting in Ireland'. But his schemes were not to be realised, for he suffered the great misfortune of having both consignments of his Italian acquisitions captured at sea by French privateers (in 1707 and 1709) - all of his 'valuable collection of books, paintings, statues antiquities, drafts and musick he had made abroad, things that he took much delight in and enter'd into the study of in Italy'.
He had set out from England in July 1705 (during the War of the Spanish Succession) with his close friend Francis Clerke. They spent some time in Utrecht and Hanover before arriving in Padua on 9 October 1706.2 They visited Venice and proceeded to Rome, where Perceval employed Ficoroni as his antiquary,3 and impressed the young James Gibbs who apparently guided his studies in architecture. Gibbs later told him 'I believe there will come to Rome very few that will leave such a notable character behind them'. The painters Edward Gouge and Henry Trench also attended Perceval, who sat to Vincenzo Felici for his marble bust which is signed and dated Rome 1707 (NPG). His other acquisitions, as described in his correspondence, included copies of 'the painters' heads' (presumably those from the Medici gallery), copies by Gouge of paintings by the Carracci in the Farnese gallery, unspecified works by Trench, and '24 heads and 3 statues' from Massimiliano Soldani (finished by November 1707). Besides paintings and sculpture, he acquired books, medals, drawings, ivories (he mentioned 'the ivory Caesar's heads which I bought at Rome'), and music. A competent player of the harpsichord, Perceval participated in concerts in Rome.
Late in March 1707 it took the travellers five days to travel from Rome to Florence.4 Perceval was received with particular courtesy by the Grand Duke Cosimo III (who had previously been received in Ireland by Perceval's relations) and was even permitted to use the Duke's camerero, Laurenzo Magnolfi, as his agent for the works of art he was commissioning in Italy. Clerke described their subsequent journey in a letter written from Geneva on 28 May 1707.4 They visited Leghorn, spending two days with the Protestant chaplain Dr Basil Kennett, Clerke observing that 'our English factory contributes more to make [Leghorn] flourishing than any others in it'. They left Leghorn by sea for Genoa but, after a skirmish with a privateer commanded by a Neapolitan, they were forced to put in at Lerici and complete their journey by mule. Clerke thought Genoa 'the most extraordinary of any place I have seen next to Venice, and the buildings generaly the finest in Italy. The woemen are very pretty'. They also met there Lord Peterborough and his son Captain Henry Mordaunt. From Genoa they went on to spend 'an agreeable fortnight' in Turin. By the end of May they were in Geneva, Perceval relieved to be in 'a protestant Country, after spending so much time in Popish ones where he could joyn in no publick worship' and happy to find himself preserved 'from the corruptions which youth at such distance from home is apt to fall into by reason of the lycensiousness of manners that reigns abroad, and the liberties that strangers in particular are allow'd to take provided they disturb not the government'.5
1. See Add.47072, ff.21 - 3, 103. 2. Brown 1287. 3. See HMC Egremont, 2:217 - 19. 4. PRO NI, d 906/67 (Clerke, 28 May 1707). 5. Add.47072, f.22.