Wilton House

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Open location in Google Maps: 51.079667, -1.856490

2 Annotations

Second Reading

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

Cosmo, the future Grand Duke of Turin, was hosted at Wilton House by Philip Herbert, Earl of Pembroke and his eldest son, William, in the spring of 1669.

I've standardized the spelling of names I know, corrected scanning errors I could figure out, and increased the number of paragraphs. I apologize if they are wrong:

[COSMO] re-entering the carriage, went to Wilton, the country house of the Earl of Pembroke, situated in the neighborhood of a small village of the same name.

Here his highness returned the visit of a young unmarried daughter of the earl (another being married to the Baron Paulet) and dined.

There was prepared for his highness, at the head of the table, an armchair, which he insisted upon the young lady’s taking; upon which the earl instantly drew forward another similar one, in which the serene prince sat, in the highest place; all the rest sitting upon stools.

His highness obliged the earl to take the place nearest to him, though in his own house; and there were at table, besides all his highness's gentlemen, the sheriff and several other gentlemen, in all 16.

The dinner was superb, and served in a noble style; they remained at table about two hours.

In the course of the afternoon, his highness went down into the garden, and entertained himself a long time in conversation with the earl alone; and as it was nearly sunset, he walked about the garden, through the center of which flows a river called the Nadder, which passes under a bridge on a level with the ground, and produces trout in abundance.

151

His highness went to see the grotto, rough-cast with pumice stone and cockle shells; several fountains that play in different ways; some rooms newly built, as well for pleasure as for the convenience of a foundry; and the maze park, and whatever else of the pleasurable and agreeable the nature and character of the country affords.

He then went to view the rest of the palace, which is richly ornamented with many pictures of Vandyke;

and as evening now drew near, went back to Salisbury,

@@@

Philip Herbert, 5th Earl of Pembroke; https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…

William Herbert: https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…

THEY ATE DINNER SITTING ON STOOLS!? Pepys never mentioned this ... and clearly Count Lorenzo Magalotti thought it worthy of mention, meaning it was not common in Italy.

From:
TRAVELS OF COSMO THE THIRD, GRAND DUKE OF TUSCANY,
THROUGH ENGLAND,
DURING THE REIGN OF KING CHARLES THE SECOND (1669)
TRANSLATED FROM THE ITALIAN MANUSCRIPT
https://archive.org/stream/travel…

His highness, Cosmo, must be considered only as a traveler. Under his direction, the narrator of the records was Count Lorenzo Magalotti, afterwards Secretary to the Academy del Cimento, and one of the most learned and eminent characters of the court of Ferdinand II.

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References

Chart showing the number of references in each month of the diary’s entries.

1665

1668