(c.1696 - 1768) of Hermitage near Rochester, Kent; Ch.Ch. Oxf. 1712; suc. bro. 1721 as 4th Bt.
1723 - 5 Rome (by Nov. 1723 - Mar. 1724), Naples (Mar.), Rome ( - 8 May), Padua (26 May 1724), Venice [Vienna] Padua (22 Feb. 1725), Venice, Rome (by 3 Mar. - May 1725), Florence
Sir Francis Head was in Rome by November 1723, in close touch with the Archbishop of Canterbury and Sir Robert Walpole concerning the Jacobite court. Soon, however, Stosch suspected Head himself of having Jacobite sympathies.1 In March 1724 Head went to Naples,2 and on 8 May he left Rome for Venice and Vienna,3 passing through Padua on 26 May.4 He was expected back in Rome in December 1724, when Stosch expressed concern for his companion Thomas Mostyn, since Head was now 'outr? en th?orie et pratique'.5 Mostyn and Head had been in Padua on 22 February 1725,6 and in March Rosalba Carriera in Venice received payment for her portrait of 'Mostin' (untraced).7 That same month the two reached Rome8 and on 19 April began a course of antiquities under Palazzi with Edward Gascoigne and a Mr Dalton.9 In May they left Rome for Florence.(10) Plates in Gori's Inscriptiones [1726 - 43] were dedicated to Head and Mostyn.
1. SP 85/14 (Walton, 6 Nov., 25 Dec. 1723, n.d. [early 1724]). 2. SP 85/15 (Walton, 4 Mar.). 3. Rawlinson jnl.MSS. 4. Brown 1748. 5. SP 85/15 (Walton, 9 Dec. 1724). 6. Brown 1778, 1775. 7. Sani 1985, 786. 8. SP 85/15, f.306 (Walton, 3 Mar. 1725). 9. Gascoigne jnl.MSS (19 Apr. 1725). 10. SP 85/15 (Walton, 26 May).