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| The
Tour On his first Tour Rowland Holt visited Rome and Florence. He arrived at Rome in the winter of 1745, and lived there until May 1747, when he moved Florence. His tutor was John Monro, and they lodged in Rome in the Selciata di S. Sebastianello. Holt and his friends John Bouverie and Richard Phelps raised eyebrows among the British expatriate community by openly paying court to the Young Pretender, Prince Charles Edward Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie, fresh from defeat at the Battle of Culloden). In 1747 they passed through Florence, and Horace Mann noted that "I think some notice would be taken of them, as their behaviour in Rome has been so publicly insolent" (1). This is further evidence for Jacobite sympathies among the Holts. |
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Portrait of
Rowland Holt III |
Portrait of
Prince Charles Edward Stuart |
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| While in Rome Holt had
commissioned James Russel (c.1720-1763), artist and
antiquarian tour guide, to draw some statues for him. A folio of Russel's
drawings
for Holt survives. In 1748 Russel published his 'Letters
from a Young Painter abroad to his friends in England',
and dedicated the second plate to Holt in recognition of
"favours received during his residence abroad".
Apparently Holt paid him well for his services as an
antiquarian. Holt visited Italy for a second Tour in 1750-'51, this time in the company of Rev. Edward Ventris. He engaged Russel as his tour guide, and commissioned more drawings of statues. |
A portrait
of Rowland Holt |
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| Italy comes to
Redgrave The greatest legacy of Holt's Grand Tour was his transformation of Redgrave Hall and the Park according to fashionable classical taste. Italy came to Redgrave. The old, rambling, red brick Bacon house was mostly demolished and replaced with a white brick mansion designed by landscape architect Lancelot Brown. Brown is said to have suggested adding flanking wings to make the house look less box-like, but Holt's views prevailed. The new Redgrave Hall had a compact, rectilinear ground plan with a monumental tetrastyle ionic facade, somewhat reminiscent of villas by the Italian architectural genius Palladio. Further classical references included a new Orangery surmounted by stone urns and statues, a water house in rusticated style, and a rotunda. |
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Redgrave Hall, by Lancelot Brown |
Villa Badoer, by Palladio |
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| A
19th century catalogue of the Library at Redgrave Hall
survives. Interestingly it contains an abnormally large
number of Italian books; some date back to the 15th and
16th centuries. Rare volumes included the
esoteric fable 'Hypnerotomachia' (1499) by Francis
Colonna, the epic poem 'Orlando Furioso' (1584) by
Ariosto, and 'Lo Spaccio de la Bestia Trionfante' (1584),
for which the free-thought philosopher Giordano Bruno was
burned at the stake for heresy in 1600. It is likely these books
were collected by Holt for his new library. Other books in the Library included Russel's 'Letters from a Young Painter' (1750), Gorius's 'Museum Florentinum' (Florence 1740), Sadeler's 'Vestigi delle Antichita di Roma, Tivoli, Pozzuoli ed altri luoghi' (Rome, 1660). An intriguing title is Coustos's 'The Sufferings of John Coustos for Free Masonry, and for his refusing to turn Roman Catholic' (1746). |
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An oil painting of the Holy Family hanging in Redgrave Church may also be part of the legacy of Holt's Grand Tour. | ||||||||
During the 1760's he collected prints of works by Italian masters such as Guercino, Domenichino and the Caracci brothers, engraved by Francesco Bartolozzi (1727-1815). |
 Self-portrait of Anibale Caracci,
engraved by Bartolozzi, 176-. |
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