Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of
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- Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of
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(1671 - 1713), moral philosopher, of Wimborne St Giles, Dorset, e. s. of 2nd E. of Shaftesbury; educ. Winchester; MP 1695 - 8; sty. Ld. Ashley 1683 - 99 when suc. fa. as 3rd E.; in Holland 1703 - 4; m. 1709 Jane Ewer (d. 1751); author of Characeristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times [1711]; d. Naples.
[1686 - 9 Pisa, Naples, Venice, Bologna]
1711 - 13 [dep. Dover 2 Jul. 1711] Turin (three weeks), Milan, Bologna, Florence (26 Oct.,), Rome (6 Nov.), Naples (15 Nov. 1711 - d. 15 Feb. 1713)
Shaftesbury, the celebrated heterodox whig philosopher whose health had prevented him pursuing a political career, had made his grand tour as a young man in 1686 - 9. In 1711, suffering from increasingly poor health, he decided to retire to southern Italy, and on completing the Characteristicks for the press, and leaving behind his five-month-old son (subsequently the 4th Earl), he sailed from Dover on 2 July. He was accompanied by his Countess, 'surely the Best Huswife as well as Wife, Nurse, & Friend that was ever Known in her whole sex'.1 There were eleven in his party, including Frances Whitney (lady-in-waiting), his steward Bryan Wheelock (who married Frances while in Italy, and returned to England in November 1712), Mrs Belle Skinner (who returned to England soon after the party reached Naples), and Paul Crell.
Their journey through southern France was facilitated by the Duke of Berwick, then encamped on the frontier of Piedmont, his French armies ranged against the Imperial troops. After crossing the Alps, Shaftesbury was very weak and stayed three weeks in Turin. He travelled slowly in a litter, covering some twenty miles a day, finally reaching Naples on 15 November. They lived in the Palazzo Mirelli where Shaftesbury was regularly attended by the physician of the Spanish viceroy (Count Borromeo). For the first months of 1712 he was confined to the Palazzo but busied himself with the revision of the Characteristicks for a second illustrated edition. James Fagan, whom he had met in Rome, helped him find a suitable artist, Henry Trench, and Shaftesbury corresponded at length with his printer concerning the plates.
Early in 1712 he acquired a copy of a Galatea by the Neapolitan painter Paolo de Matteis, from whom he then commissioned The Judgment of Hercules (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford), a subject which, Shaftesbury explained, 'carrys so much of my own Thought, Design, and I may allmost say Workmanship' (1 May 1712). His advice to Matteis (written in French; the only language they shared), was published in France in 1712. The picture was finished in April 1712 and Shaftesbury's son subsequently framed it in an extravagant, gilded rococo frame, although his father had specified the frame 'must be plain and of dark colourd or black Wood, not shining' (1 Sep. 1712). Matteis, who completed a reduced replica by the end of June (Leeds AG), worked in the Palazzo Mirelli, as did Trench from April to September. 'Some few men of Art and Science, the Virtuosi of this Place', such as Giuseppe Valetta and Paolo Mattia Doria, also visited the Palazzo to talk with Shaftesbury.
In April 1712 Shaftesbury began to go out again in a sedan chair, showing his Countess the scenes he had visited over twenty years before, and visiting the picture dealer Niccolo Porcinaro. He complained to Fagan (21 May 1712) that Porcinaro's pictures were too expensive and entrusted Trench with 'like affaires, while in my Family'. Shaftesbury bought numerous medals, prints and books and also works of art for his English friends: in June 1712 he was pleased to keep two Salvator Rosa landscapes when Sir John Cropley declined them (sold Christie's, 26 Nov. 1966), and he bought other pictures from the monastery of Monte Oliveto in November 1712. When Trench had returned to Rome Shaftesbury sent him (12 Sep. 1712) a Memorandum seeking information on various subjects - artists, engravers and sculptors, new works by Chiari (Trench's teacher), archaeological discoveries and sales of works of art.
In October the Spanish viceroy was ordered to expel the English from Naples but, through the agency of General Stanhope, Shaftesbury was allowed to stay. His health finally declined that winter; in November he suffered a particularly severe bout of asthma and he died on 15 February 1713. He had discussed a final commission with Matteis, a portrait of himself on his death bed set in a virtuoso's cabinet with a sketch of the Judgment of Hercules on the wall and a glimpse of Vesuvius beyond. His Countess, whom he had told to return to England immediately on his death, was still in Naples in February and she arrived home two weeks before Shaftesbury's body (buried at Wimborne St Giles in June).
Shaftesbury's correspondence and expenditure on works of art in Naples have been separately published.2
1. See R. Voitle, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury, 367 - 415. 2. Shaftesbury 1988.