(1745 - 99) of Knole, Kent, o. s. of Ld. John Philip Sackville; educ. Westminster; MP 1768 - 9; suc. uncle 1769 as 3rd D. of Dorset; Dilettanti 1776; amb. in Paris 1783 - 9; KG 1788; m. 1790 Arabella Diana Cope.
1770 - 1 Rome, Naples (by 24 Apr. - Jun. 1770), Rome (by 4 Aug. - Nov. 1770 - ), Florence (by 2 Mar. 1771), Venice (by 24 Apr.)
The 3rd Duke of Dorset was renowned for his good looks and gallantry, but not for his intelligence. He went to Italy shortly after succeeding to his dukedom, accompanied by his physician Mr Powel,1 his mistress Nancy Parsons (later Lady Maynard; see Charles, Viscount Maynard), and a train of singers and actors.2 He was to devote much of his time to gallantry and pleasure.
He had arrived in Naples from Rome by 24 April 1770, his Piedmontese courier having been shot dead by the ferryman at the crossing of the river Garigliano.3 He left Naples sometime after 19 June, planning to spend several months in Rome.4 Father Thorpe saw him in Rome on 4 August5 and in September the Duke was assisting Dr Burney's musical enquiries; 'I passed few nights at Rome', wrote Burney, 'without hearing music at the Duke of Dorset's.'6 But Dorset's chief concern while in Rome was to buying works of art, as Father Thorpe observed (the dates of his letters given in brackets). He was buying paintings in September (22 Sep. 1770*) and then regularly throughout the winter, often at very high prices (16 Jan., 23 Feb. 1771): £;60 for a Magdalene by Guercino; £;130 for a St John in Patmos by Bassano (12 Dec. 1770*), £;300 for a supposed Raphael Madonna and Child 'scarce a foot square' (20 Mar. 1771), and 120 guineas for Van Dyck's sketch for the Martyrdom of the Maccabees at the Jesuit College (23 Mar., 25 May 1771). He commissioned a copy of the Guido Reni SS Peter and Paul in the Sampieri Palace at Bologna, from Angelica Kauffman - a rare concession by Prince Sampieri (17 Aug. 1774). It may also have been in Rome that the Duke met John Cartwright, from whom he had commissioned two 'views', sometime before the end of 1774 (21 Sep. 1774). In 1776, after his return to England, he commissioned John Rouby, then in Rome, to copy Guido Reni's Aurora.7
Dorset also bought a number of ancient marbles. Three lots of his purchases were exported from Rome while he was in Italy, in August 1770 and March 1771:8 they included busts of Antinous and Pompey excavated by Gavin Hamilton at the Villa Adriana,9 and an exceptionally well-preserved statue of Demosthenes, probably acquired through Thomas Jenkins.(10) He acquired two full-size lead casts of the Borghese Gladiator (on whose shield he had his own coat of arms embossed) and the crouching Venus (Nymph with a Shell) then in the Borghese collection.(11)
Dorset had arrived at Florence by 2 March 177112 and was in Venice on 24 April.(13) He is said to have rescued Nancy Parsons as she was about to be abducted from a masked ball by a Venetian nobleman, but he seems to have ended his relationship with her before his return to England.2
1. Caldwell Papers, 3:192. 2. V. Sackville-West, Knole and the Sackvilles [1934 ed.], 178 - 9. 3. SP 93/25 (Hamilton, 24 Apr. 1770). 4. SP 105/320, f.120 (Hamilton, 12 Jun. 1770).
SP 93/25 (Hamilton, after 19 Jun. 1770). 5. Thorpe letters MSS (4 Aug. 1770*). 6. Burney, Tour, 274, 378. 7. HMC Sackville, 2028 (NRA 8575). 8. Bertolotti, 2:267 - 8 (7, 28 Aug. 1770). ASR ABA 12, f.286 (12 Mar. 1771). Later consignments of works of art were sent in Aug., Oct. and Dec. 1776(Bertolotti, 2:272. ASR ABA 12, f.289). 9. Hamilton 1901, 321. 10. Michaelis, 416 - 23. 11. Haskell and Penny, 221, 280 - 1. 12. Gazz.Tosc. 13. ASV IS 759.