The Society of Dilettanti

Group of members of the Dilettanti Society by Sir Joshua Reynolds (1779)
The central figure with the vase is Sir William Hamilton
from History of the Society of Dilettanti by L Cust (1914)

The foundation of the Dilettanti Society

The Society of Dilettanti was founded in the early 1730s by a group of men who had visited Italy on the Grand Tour and wanted to continue to share and build on their experiences.

The preface to Ionian Antiquities stated that:

In the year 1734 some gentlemen who had travelled in Italy, desirous of encouraging at home a taste for those objects which had contributed to their entertainment abroad, formed themselves into a society under the name of the Dilettanti.1,2

The name Dilettanti comes from the Latin 'dilettare', to take delight in, and the Society adopted a policy of 'seria ludo' – looking at serious subjects in a light-hearted manner.

Membership

In 1736, there were 46 members, mostly “young men of rank and fashion”3. New members had to be personally known to an existing member and elected in a secret ballot.

The ballot box
from History of the Society of Dilettanti by L Cust (1914)

In 1743, Horace Walpole criticised the Society of Dilettanti, saying that it was

...a club, for which the nominal qualification is having been in Italy, and the real one being drunk; the two chiefs are Lord Middlesex and Sir Francis Dashwood, who were seldom sober the whole time they were in Italy.4

The influence of later members such as Sir William Hamilton, Charles Townley and Richard Payne Knight shifted the focus of the Society toward archaeological investigations. By the end of the 18th century, the Society was the top British establishment for the study of classical antiquities.

Meetings

The Society’s first documented meeting was at the Bedford Head Tavern, Covent Garden, on 6 March 1736. Subsequent meetings were held in various taverns, but by 1757, the Society usually met for dinner on alternate Sundays at the Star and Garter in Pall Mall.5

From 1800 to 1810, they met at Mr Parslow’s tavern in St James’ Street. The Society bought a site in Cavendish Square in 1747 to erect their own building, but plans were later abandoned and the land sold again, at a profit.

Two boxes were commissioned by the Society – an elaborate balloting box for the secret ballots and a box in the shape of the Tomb of Bacchus to hold the Society’s records.

The Tomb of Bacchus
from History of the Society of Dilettanti by L Cust (1914)

There was an element of mystery surrounding the proceedings of the Dilettanti Society. It was rumoured that the Society’s rituals were infused with sexual and religious overtones. The officers of the Society were required to dress for their roles. According to the minutes, the President was supposed to wear a crimson toga and the Secretary, to dress like Machiavelli. Some of the members had secret cabinets filled with erotic curiosities.

Portraits and face-money

The Society appointed George Knapton as painter and passed a resolution that every member should have his portrait painted and presented to the Society. A further resolution introduced an annual fine of one guinea on any member who had failed to present his portrait. This was designated 'face-money' and raised considerable sums of money for the Society.

Knapton resigned in 1763 and was replaced by James Stuart, but Stuart failed to paint any portraits and Sir Joshua Reynolds took over in 1769. Reynolds painted two large pictures of members of the Dilettanti Society. These reflected both the serious nature of the Society and the light-hearted camaraderie between its members.

Group of members of the Dilettanti Society by Sir Joshua Reynolds (1779)
from History of the Society of Dilettanti by L Cust (1914)

Subsequently, Sir Thomas Lawrence and then Sir Martin Archer Shee were appointed to this role.

The Royal Academy

In the 1750s, the Society was involved in discussions about the creation of a Royal Academy of art, but it wanted too much influence and the negotiations broke down. However, the Society provided financial support for the Royal Academy in 1775 by starting to provide scholarships for Academy students to study in Italy and Greece.

Sponsorship

The Society raised money through membership subscriptions and face-money and used it to influence taste and sponsor the study of Greek and Roman art.

In the 1740s, the Society sponsored the Earl of Middlesex’s series of Italian operas in London.

In the 1750s, the Society sponsored James Stuart and Nicholas Revett’s Athenian expedition. This resulted in the influential publication, Antiquities of Athens Measured and Delineated which was published in three volumes between 1762 and 1794.

View of Athens from The Antiquities of Athens (Vol I)
by J Stuart & N Revett (1762)

In 1764, the Society backed a trip to Ionia – the first archaeological trip to Asia Minor sponsored by any British Institution. The men sponsored were Richard Chandler, a classical scholar and inscription expert; Nicholas Revett, the architect from the Athenian expedition; and William Pars, a topographical artist. They carried out the first excavations of the temple of Zeus at Nemea. The findings of the trip were documented in Antiquities of Ionia (1797).

A second expedition to Ionia was sponsored in 1812, with the team headed by topographical artist, William Gell. Their research was recorded in Unedited Antiquities of Attica (1817).

The Society in disrepute

In 1787, the Dilettanti published An Account of the Worship of Priapus. It included a letter from Sir William Hamilton to Sir Joseph Banks describing his finds concerning the Neapolitan cult of the worship of Priapus. More controversially, it included an essay by Knight which made outrageous suppositions about ancient sexual conduct in religious ceremonies. It was ill-received and damaged Knight’s reputation.

Specimens of Ancient Sculpture

In 1808, the Society published the first volume of Specimens of Ancient Sculpture Aegyptian, Etruscan, Greek and Roman: selected from different collections in Great Britain. John Samuel Agar was responsible for the highly detailed drawings of the classical statutory which were then engraved for this volume. The collections were all held by members of the Dilettanti, but those of Knight and Townley were the most prominent.

The Elgin Marbles

Some of the Parthenon marbles in the British Museum (2014)

Knight was vehemently opposed to the purchase of the Parthenon marbles brought back by Lord Elgin. For more than ten years, he attempted to discredit them as Roman copies of Phidias’ originals. Other members thought differently. The British Museum bought the marbles in 1816 and the Dilettanti Society donated the two pieces of Parthenon frieze that they had brought back from the first Ionian expedition. The episode further damaged Knight’s reputation.

Prominent members

In its early days, prominent members of the Dilettanti Society included:
• Charles Sackville, Earl of Middlesex, later 2nd Duke of Dorset
• Sir Francis Dashwood, later Lord le Despencer
• Simon Harcourt, Viscount and later Earl Harcourt
• Gustavus Hamilton, 2nd Viscount Boyne
• William Ponsonby, later Viscount Duncannon and Earl of Bessborough
• Richard Grenville, Earl Temple
• Sewallis Shirley, Comptroller of Queen Charlotte’s household
• Sir James Gray, British Resident at Venice and British Envoy to Naples and later Spain
• Simon Luttrell, later Earl of Carhampton
• Sir George Gray
• George Knapton

Other notable members included:
• Sir Joshua Reynolds (1766)
• Charles James Fox (1769)
• George Selwyn (1770)
• William Cavendish, Duke of Devonshire (1770)
• Sir Joseph Banks (1774)
• Charles Francis Greville (1774)
• Sir William Hamilton (1777)
• David Garrick (1777)
• Richard Payne Knight (1781)
• Sir George Beaumont (1784)
• Charles Townley (1786)
• Sir Richard Colt Hoare, Baronet (1792)
• Sir Thomas Lawrence (1792)
• Benjamin West (1792)

• Thomas Hope (1800)

Notes

(1) The exact date of the formation of the Society of Dilettanti is unknown. This passage states that it was formed in 1734, but the first recorded meeting was not until 1736. Society annals indicate that the first meetings of the Society may have been held as early as December 1732 in Italy.

(2) From the introduction to Ionian Antiquities, published by the Dilettanti Society (1769).
(3) From History of the Society of Dilettanti by L Cust (1914).

(4) In a letter from Horace Walpole to Sir Horace Mann 14 April 1743 in Letters of Horace Walpole (1840).

(5) From Life and Times of Sir Joshua Reynolds by CR Leslie and T Taylor (1865). Jason Kelly in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography refers to the Society meeting five times a year in the Star and Garter from 1757, but this may have been referring to business meetings as opposed to regular dining.

Rachel Knowles writes clean/Christian Regency era romance and historical non-fiction. She has been sharing her research on this blog since 2011. Rachel lives in the beautiful Georgian seaside town of Weymouth, Dorset, on the south coast of England, with her husband, Andrew.

Find out more about Rachel's books and sign up for her newsletter here.

If you have enjoyed this blog and want to encourage me and help me to keep making my research freely available, please buy me a virtual cup of coffee by clicking the button below.

 

Sources used include:
Cust, Lionel, MA and Colvin, Sir Sidney, MA, History of the Society of Dilettanti (1914)
Kelly, Jason, Society of Dilettanti (act. 1732-2003), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, May 2006; online edn Sept 2012, accessed 12 Jan 2013)
Leslie, Charles Robert, RA, and Taylor, Tom, MA, Life and Times of Sir Joshua Reynolds (1865)
Stuart, James and Revett, Nicholas, The Antiquities of Athens, measured and delineated Vol I (1762)
Walpole, Horace, The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford, in six volumes (1840)

John Paul Getty Museum website – Dilettanti exhibition (2008)

Photographs © Regencyhistory.net

The history of the British Museum

Staircase of the British Museum in Montagu House
  Watercolour by George Scharf I (1845)
© Trustees of the British Museum

Sir Hans Sloane’s collection

The British Museum was founded on 7 June 1753 by an Act of Parliament, becoming the first national public museum in the world. It was established as a result of accepting the bequest of the physician and naturalist, Sir Hans Sloane, who left the entire contents of his collection to George II in return for a payment of £20,000 to the beneficiaries of his will.

Sloane’s collection consisted of over 71,000 objects including books, manuscripts, natural specimens and antiquities such as coins, medals, prints and drawings.

Montagu House

The North Front of Montagu House and Gardens
  An engraving by James Simon (1714)
  © Trustees of the British Museum

In 1755, the Trustees of the British Museum bought Montagu House in Bloomsbury to house the museum’s collections. The gardens were opened to the public from 11 March 1757 and the museum was opened to the public for the first time on 15 January 1759.

In 1823, Sir Robert Smirke designed a new building to display the growing collections, consisting of a quadrangle with four wings and Greek style columns. The building was finished in 1852 and is still the centre of the museum complex today.

The British Museum(2014)

The reading room

According to a guidebook for 1800:

Such literary gentlemen as desire to study in it, are to give in their names and places of abode, signed by one of the officers, of the committee; and if no objection is made, they are permitted to peruse any books or manuscripts which are brought to them by the messenger, as soon as they come to the reading room, in the morning at nine o’clock; and this order lasts six months, after which they may have it renewed. There are some curious manuscripts, however, which they are not permitted to peruse, unless they make a particular application to the committee, and then they obtain them; but they are taken back to their places in the evening, and brought again in the morning.1

The curiosities

Entry was free and granted to “all studious and curious Persons.”2

The 1800 guidebook describes the admission process:

Those who come to see the curiosities, are to give in their names to the porter, who enters them in a book, which is given to the principal librarian, who strikes them off, and orders the tickets to be given in the following manner: In May, June, July and August, forty-five are admitted on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, viz. fifteen at nine in the forenoon, fifteen at eleven, and fifteen at one in the afternoon. On Monday and Friday fifteen are admitted at four in the afternoon, and fifteen at six. The other eight months in the year, forty-five are admitted in three different companies, on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, at nine, eleven and one o’clock.1

An entrance ticket to the British Museum (1790)
  © Trustees of the British Museum

According to the British Museum’s website, visitors were taken round the exhibition by an under-librarian in groups of five, up the great staircase, through the upper rooms and down again to the ground floor.

A guidebook for 1803-4 says:

All fees are prohibited, and persons who wish to view the Museum must previously enter their names and address, and the time when they would wish to see it, in a book kept by the porter. On a future day they will be supplied with tickets free of expense. Children are not admitted.3

Entrance of the British Museum
  from Russell Street; Garden front (1761)
  © Trustees of the British Museum

Various opening arrangements were adopted over the years, but by 1809, it seems that entry was no longer by ticket. The museum was open on Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 10am to 4pm and “all persons of decent appearance who apply between the hours of ten and two, are immediately admitted.”4 

 

It was closed for Christmas, Easter and Whitsun weeks and during the months of August and September. People could stay until closing time if they wished, though children under ten were still excluded. According to Leigh's London guide, these arrangements were still in force in 1818.

The British Museum
 from London; being an accurate history and description
of the British Metropolis and its neighbourhood Volume IV
  by David Hughson (1807)

The arrangement of the collections

Initially the collections were split into three sections: printed books and prints; manuscripts including medals; and natural and artificial productions - basically, anything else.

By 1809, this had been separated into four: printed books; manuscripts; natural history and modern artificial curiosities; antiquities, coins, drawings and engravings.3

They were arranged over the rooms of Montagu House in these sections:

Lower floor: Library of printed books

Upper floor: modern works of art; manuscripts; minerals; shells, fossils & herbals; insects, worms, corals & vegetables; birds & quadrupeds, stuffed; quadrupeds, snakes, lizards, and fishes, in spirits.

Gallery: terra cottas; Greek & Roman sculptures; Roman sepulchral antiquities; Egyptian antiquities; coins & medals; Sir William Hamilton’s collection; drawings & engravings.

 

The growth of the museum

During the 1850s and beyond, the museum expanded its collections to include British and medieval antiquities, oriental art, prehistoric finds and archaeological material from Europe.

The museum was involved in excavation abroad – its Assyrian collections helped the understanding of an ancient Middle Eastern script called cuneiform and the Rosetta Stone unlocked the meaning of Egyptian hieroglyphic script.

In the 1880s, the natural history collections were moved to a new building in South Kensington. This became the Natural History Museum.

Close-up of the Rosetta Stone
in the British Museum (2014)

The exhibits

The museum’s collections included:
• The Cottonian library of books and manuscripts (early 1750s)
• The Harleian collection of manuscripts (early 1750s) – purchased by parliament for £10,000
• The first ancient Egyptian mummy (1756)
• Various ethnographic artefacts from Captain Cook’s Pacific voyages, including a Tahitian mourner’s dress (1756)
• The “Old Royal Library” of the sovereigns of England – donated by George II (1757)
• The trunk of a tree gnawed by a beaver (1760)
• A stone resembling a petrified loaf (1760)
• Italian antiquities (1762) – £8410
• A live tortoise from North America (1765)
• Gustavus Brander’s fossils (1765)
• Birch’s library (1766)
• Greenwood's collection of stuffed birds – from Holland (1769) - £460
• Sir William Hamilton’s collection of Greek vases (1772) – Etruscan, Grecian and Roman antiquities - £8400

The 'Hunt krater' (575-550BC)
  from Sir William Hamilton's collection
  © Trustees of the British Museum

• Halhed’s oriental manuscripts (1796)
• Hatchett’s minerals (1798) - £700
• Tysson’s Saxon coins (1802)
• The Rosetta Stone (1802)
• The Townley collection of classical sculpture including the “Discobolus” statue and the bust of a young woman “Clytie” (1805). You can read more about Charles Townley here.
• Lansdown manuscripts (1807) - £4,925
• Bentley’s classical library (1807)
• Roberts’ coins (1810)
• Greville minerals (1810) - £13,727
• Hargrave library (1813) - £8,000
• Sculptures from the Temple of Apollo at Bassae (1815)
• The Parthenon sculptures (1816)

Some of the Parthenon sculptures in the British Museum (2014)

• George III’s library (1823) – donated by George IV; the quadrangular building was erected to house it.
• Western Asiatic collection began – manuscripts, medals and antiquities (1825)
• The Nereid monument (1842)
• First stone sculptures from excavations at Nimrud site in the Middle East including the great winged bull (1850s)
• The remains of the Mausoleum of Halikarnassos (1856-7)

Rachel Knowles writes clean/Christian Regency era romance and historical non-fiction. She has been sharing her research on this blog since 2011. Rachel lives in the beautiful Georgian seaside town of Weymouth, Dorset, on the south coast of England, with her husband, Andrew.

Find out more about Rachel's books and sign up for her newsletter here.

If you have enjoyed this blog and want to encourage me and help me to keep making my research freely available, please buy me a virtual cup of coffee by clicking the button below.

 

Notes
(1) From Scatcherd's Ambulator (1800)
(2) The British Museum website
(3) From Crosby's A View of London (1803-4)
(4) From Hughson's London Volume VI (1809)

Sources used include:
Cox, Son and Baylis (publishers), Synopsis of the contents of the British Museum (1809)
Crosby, B , A View of London; or the Stranger's Guide through the British Metropolis (Printed for B Crosby, London, 1803-4)
Hughson, David, London; being an accurate history and description of the British Metropolis and its neighbourhood Volume IV (1807, London)
Hughson, David, London; being an accurate history and description of the British Metropolis and its neighbourhood Volume VI (1809, London)
Leigh, Samuel, Leigh's New Picture of London (London, 1818)
Scatcherd, J, Ambulator or A Pocket Companion in a tour round London (Printed for J Scatcherd, London, 1800)

The British Museum website

All photographs © RegencyHistory.net