An English antiquary in Malta in the eighteenth century : the visit of Sir Richard Colt Hoare

Abstract

The Eighteenth Century was the great period of the gentleman-travellers who made the Grand Tour of Europe. Many of them had independent means and could travel at leisure and attended on by servants in joumeys of several years. One of them was the baronet, Sir Richard Colt Hoare, who travelled extensively between 1785 and 1791 before settling down in Wiltshire to write the history of his native county on which his fame largely rests. As an antiquary he could not but be interested in Italy of which he, made a classical tour in the manner of another English traveller, John Chetwode Eustace, who had published a well-known book on the subject. Eustace had planned a sequel but death had intervened. Hoare filled up the gap with his own Classical Tour through Italy and Sicily, published in London in 1819 and originally meant for 'the gratification of his family and friends'.