(1710 - 71), 3rd s. of 2nd D. of Bedford; m. 1 1731 Ldy. Diana Spencer (d. 1735), dau. of 3rd E. of Sunderland, 2 1737 Ldy. Gertrude Leveson-Gower, dau. of 1st E. Gower; suc. bro. 1732 as 4th D.; Dilettanti and FRS 1742; army officer, col. 1745, lt.-gen. 1759; KG 1749; amb. Paris 1762 - 3.
1730 - 1 Rome (by 30 Nov. 1730 - Feb. 1731), Florence (2 Mar.), Venice, Bologna [England by Oct.]
Travelling with John Hetherington and Moses Bernege,1 Lord Russell had arrived in Rome by 30 November 1730.2 On 2 March 1731 he had just arrived in Florence from Rome,3 and a week later one Fournereau, a Jacobite, was sharing house with him.4 He was in Venice for Ascension in 1731 and went on to Bologna to hear the opera.5 Hetherington alone signed the visitors' book at Padua University on 29 May.6 It seems probable that in Venice Russell met Canaletto who subsequently painted twenty views for him, the first paid for in 1733.7 Russell was back in England by October 1731, when he married Lady Diana Spencer.
1. J.H. Whiffen, Historical Memoirs of the House of Russell, 2:330 - 2. 2. SP 98/32, f.126 (Walton, 30 Nov. 1730). 3. SP 98/31 (Colman, 2 Mar. 1731). 4. SP 98/32, f.167 (Walton, 10 Mar. 1731). 5. SP 99/63, f.163 (Burges, 1 Jun. 1731). 6. Brown 1899. 7. F. Russell, Apollo, 127[1988]:406. See Treasure Houses, no.169.