Smith, James Edward
- Dictionary and Archive of Travellers
- Title
- Smith, James Edward
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(1759 - 1828), botanist, e. s. of James Smith of Norwich; Edinburgh U. 1781; FRS 1785; MD Leiden U. 1786; Kt. 1814.
1786 - 7 [dep. England 16 Jun. 1786] Genoa (29 Dec. 1786 - 18 Jan. 1787), Lerici, Pisa (21 Jan.), Florence (24 Jan. - 1 Feb.), Siena, Rome (7 - 25 Feb.), Naples (28 Feb. - 17 Mar.), Rome (23 Mar. - 25 Apr.), Bologna (5 - 8 May), Venice (10 - 28 May), Padua (29 May), Vicenza (30 May), Mantua, Parma, Milan (7 - 15 Jun.), Pavia ( - 19 Jun.), Genoa (21 Jun. - 30 Jul.), Turin ( - 11 Aug.) [Boulogne, 2 Nov.]
In 1793 Smith published his Sketch of a Tour on the Continent, in the years 1786 and 1787, dedicated to Dr William Young, his travelling companion. It is an observant and enlightened journal (with a bibliography of travel guides to Italy), in which the author's particular interests in botany and natural science are mixed with a tourist's curiosity concerning works of art and foreign customs. A non-conformist, he tolerated popery, reflecting that it would be better if 'differences of religion were less thought of, than those sources of improvement and consolation to which all modes of faith, in common, direct us, though each by a different route'.
They had left England in June 1786 and arrived in Genoa from Nice in December. They stayed three weeks at the Gran Cervo, meeting the 'ingenious English physician' Dr William Batt, their banker Joseph Brame, and Smith's friend the Marquis Hippolito Durazzo. At Pisa they hired the vetturino Diego Baroncello, who was to accompany them most of their way through Italy, and they reached Vannini's hotel in Florence on 24 January 1787. The physician Tozzetti showed them the natural history collection he had inherited from Micheli, and in the Uffizi Smith noticed that Reynolds's self-portrait had 'faded to nothing, and being placed very low, appears to greater disadvantage'. In Siena they met the anatomist Mascagni and his dissector Semenzi (to whom Batt had provided an introduction). They reached Rome on 7 February and stayed at Pio's hotel on the Piazza di Spagna. Resolved to devote their time to the study of art and architecture, they dispensed with letters of introduction. The Abb? Correa de Serra, a Portuguese acquaintance of Smith's, became their cicerone, and they stayed through the Carnival, regularly seeing the decrepit Young Pretender driving in the Corso 'lolling in his coach'.
On 25 February they left Rome for Naples where they stayed at the Albergo Francese, near the Molo. Sir William Hamilton, 'a man of science' as well as diplomat, showed them his elegant rooms with sash windows in Naples and at Caserta, where they were also able to meet Goethe, 'a polite unassuming man', to hear 'some charming unpublished quartettos of Giardini's', and to see the English garden growing under the care of John Graefer. They returned to Rome for Holy Week. As Pio's hotel was now occupied by the Duke of Gloucester, they stayed in a mercer's house in the Strada Condotta. Smith admired the bearing of the Pope 'in all the ceremonies'; he was struck by the dramatic Easter service in the Sistine Chapel, while the firework display on Easter Monday reminded him of 'the excellent pictures' of Joseph Wright of Derby. From Rome they went to spend three days in Bologna, where Guido Reni's St Peter in the Sampieri collection held their attention.
In Venice Smith considered St Mark's to be 'the most dirty place of public worship in Europe', and in the Square one trod on rotten fish from the adjoining market. In Padua they met Arduino, a former professor of botany, and Dr Gallini, professor of the theory of medicine. They visited Bodoni's press in Parma and went on to meet the Astronomer Royal, the Abb? Oriani, in Milan. On 15 June they reached Pavia, 'the most celebrated university in Italy, and perhaps better furnished with able professors, men of real genius and activity, than most at present existing in the world'. They attended a lecture by Spallanzani, professor of natural history, but it was there that Young left Smith, called home by 'unavoidable engagements'.
Smith went on alone to Genoa and Turin, whence he made an expedition to Mont Cenis with a small party which included a mineralogist, Dr Buonvicino, and a natural philosopher, the Abb? Vasco. Smith left Italy at the end of August 1787 and sailed to Dover from Boulogne on 2 November.