(1760 - 1805), b. Dublin, 3rd s. of Henry Quin; educ. Harrow and Trin. Dublin 1776; took his own life; bequeathed the Bibliotheca Quiniana to Trin. Dublin.
1785 - 6 [Geneva], Mont Cenis, Turin (16 - 22 Oct. 1785), Livorno (22 Oct.), Vercelli (23 Oct.), Milan (25 Oct. - 3 Nov.), Parma (4 Nov.), Mantua (5 Nov.), Verona (7 Nov.), Vicenza (8 Nov.), Venice (10 - 21 Nov.), Padua (22 Nov.), Bologna (24 - 28 Nov.), Florence (29 Nov. - 8 Dec.), Siena (8 Dec.), Viterbo (10 Dec.), Rome (11 Dec. 1785 - 20 Feb. 1786 - ), Velletri (21 Feb.), Naples (by 24 Feb. - 18 Mar.), Rome (22 Mar. - 21 Apr.), Perugia (24 Apr.), Cortona (25 Apr.), Florence (27 Apr. - 4 May), Leghorn (3 - 5 May), Genoa (10 - 15 May) [Nice 17 May]
Quin, accompanied by a Mr Truell, set out on his travels in 1785 and returned in the autumn of 1786. He kept an entertaining diary (the first volume of which remains untraced) now in Trinity College, Dublin, (Quin jnl.MSS)1 which, apart from providing their Italian itinerary, comments freely on travellers and their ways. Thus at one of several receptions given by Cardinal de Bernis at Rome in January 1786, he observed that 'one of the old trouts' was 'an Irishwoman, Princess Giustiniani'; at another he remarked on the 'English as usual together in a clump'. The English connoisseur George Cumberland was 'a pleasant kind young Man only he tells too many Lies about Paris; perhaps he did not know I had been there'.
Their tour of Italy lasted six months. They had spent a week in Turin at the 'Hotel de Bonne Femme' and another week in Milan where, on 31 October 1785, they met a Mr Bennet, an Englishman with his tutor, who helped them to purchase a 'voiture'. In Parma Quin met the Irish painter Solomon Williams, who sketched for him Correggio's Madonna of St Jerome. They spent two weeks in Venice and a week was sufficient for Florence; 'half the foreigners that come to Florence are English' Quin commented. Most of their time was spent in Rome, where both compiled lists of the British and Irish visitors; Truell mentioned seventy-four,2 while Quin, on 1 April 1786, recorded one hundred and thirty. 'The quantities of English I met last night at Cardinal Bernis's', he then explained, 'put me in the head of making out a list of such Names as I know & who have been here [in Rome] this Winter. I may have omitted several of them & there are many others whose names I do not yet know'. The Young Pretender, seen by Quin on 27 January, was not listed, nor were the artists Quin knew in Rome - H.D. Hamilton, Christopher Hewetson and Nathaniel Marchant (from whom Quin bought an intaglio).3 Quin was in Naples by 24 February and three days later paid a visit to Herculaneum, where he was critical of what he saw; 'I expected to see houses, Temples, streets etc just in the state they were left', but nothing was visible 'but the ancient Theatre'. Having passed three weeks in Naples they returned to Rome for Easter week, and then set out on their journey home. They sailed from Leghorn to Genoa, and were in Nice on 17 May.
1. See V. Morrow, in P. Fox ed., Treasures of the Library, Trinity College Dublin, [1986], 184 - 96. T.P.C. Kirkpatrick, Henry Quin MD, [1919], 44 - 54. 2. Truell jnl.MSS, Trin., Dublin, MS.3814. 3. Marchant 1987, 41.
N. F.