(1749 - 1809), 2nd s. of 1st E. Brooke and 1st E. of Warwick; Edinburgh U. 1764; MP 1774 - 90; Dilettanti 1774; unm.
1768 - 9 Rome (by Nov. 1768), Naples, Rome (Mar. 1769), Venice (by 12 May)
1775 [dep. England Jul.] Naples (Sep.), Florence (by 7 Oct. 1775) [England by 31 Oct. 1775]
Once described as a 'queer compound of the Pharisee and the Publican, something between a Charles and a Joseph Surface',1 the nineteen-year-old Greville first visited Italy in 1768 - 9. He was in Rome in November 17682 and then stayed with his uncle, William Hamilton, in Naples. Their friendship, based on a common love of antiquity and virt?, was to have far-reaching consequences. In March 1769 Greville was back in Rome, 'running about the antiquities from 9 to 11 with Byers [James Byres] and from 11 to 2 with Miss A'3 - possibly Anne Forbes, from whom he commissioned two pictures (probably copies).4 He was in Venice on 12 May;5 his uncle later wrote to him that he could 'conceive that a gondola with a fine woman in it must seem a most luxurious conveyance for a young man in his prime'.6 Greville was in Vienna in October.7
Greville returned to Italy very briefly in 1775. He set out in July, and spent two weeks in Naples in September.8 He was reported in Florence on 7 October9 and was in London again by the end of the month.(10) Immediately after his return Hamilton was writing to him about 'the poor man we employ'd about the pictures of Boranello'; he had bought for Greville two pictures by Calabresi; 'I shall send a picture or two of mine with yours' and adds a postcript that 'if you like to have the other Mater Dolorosa we saw together, let me know; about 100 D's. will purchase it. Call'd Spagnolette, and under a glass'.(11)
Greville, despite his relatively modest finances, collected throughout his life, and his uncle (conceivably in gratitude for Emma Hart, whom he had received from Greville in 1786, see William Hamilton) called him one of the three great connoisseurs of the arts in England (the others being Charles Townley and William Lock).(12) Greville's collection, sold at Christie's in March - April 1810, was then described as designed to illustrate 'the progress of Painting'; it contained a remarkable number of Italian primitives (called Cimabue, Giotto, Masaccio, etc) of which a 'Masaccio' (now NG London as Spinello) had been bought from Patch in Florence. Among his antique sculpture was a Bacchante from Gavin Hamilton, later bought by Townley some years before the Greville sale.(13)
1. W. Sichel, Emma Lady Hamilton, 38. 2. SP 105/319, f.261 (Albani, 5 Nov. 1768). 3. Morrison, 1:9 (no.14). 4. Forbes mss (Mrs Forbes, 24 Aug. 1769). 5. ASV is 759. 6. Morrison, 1:17 (no.26). 7. Ibid., 1:13 (no.20). 8. Hamilton, 22 Sep. 1775. Cf. Morrison, 1:39 (no.56). 9. Gazz. Tosc. 10. Morrison, 1:39 - 40 (no.57). 11. Ibid., 41 (no.58). 12. Add.36495, f.267 (Hamilton, 27 Dec. 1787). 13. Hamilton 1901, 317.