Society of Dilettanti
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- For a definition of "dilettante", see the Wiktionary entry.
The Society of Dilettanti was a society of noblemen and gentlemen which sponsored the study of ancient Greek and Roman art and the creation of new work in the style. It was founded as a London dining club in 1734 by a group of people who had been on the Grand Tour.
The group, initially led by Francis Dashwood, contained several dukes and was later joined by Joshua Reynolds, David Garrick, Uvedale Price and Richard Payne Knight, among others.
The club quickly became wealthy and influential, through a system in which members had to pay it 4% of their income in any year in which they received certain forms of windfall, such as a marriage.
The group aimed to "correct and purify"[citation needed] the public taste of the country; from the 1740s, it began to support Italian opera, and from the 1750s, it was the prime mover in establishing the Royal Academy. It also funded scholarships for youths to go on the Grand Tour, or for archaeological expeditions such as that of Richard Chandler, William Pars and Nicholas Revett, the results of which they published in Ionian Antiquities, a major influence on neo-Classicism in Britain.
Modern manifestations of the society have popped up on campuses in England and the United States, most notably at Cambridge University where the society, comprised mostly of fellows and students at Clare College, meets every so often to discuss topics of interest [1].
[edit] Notable members
- Joseph Banks, 1st Baronet
- Richard Chandler
- Lawrence Dundas, 1st Baronet
- John Peter Gandy
- William Gell
- Charles Francis Greville
- William Richard Hamilton
- Richard Payne Knight
- Sir Anthony R Wagner, Garter Principal King of Arms
- Sir Bourchier Wrey, 6th Baronet
[edit] Related terminology
Dilettantism is an idle, often affected, almost always barren admiration and study of the fine arts; "in earnest about nothing."
[edit] Bibliography
- Cust, Lionel & Sidney Colvin, History of the Society of Dilettanti. London, 1898. [repr. with additions, 1914]
- Hamilton, W.R., Historical Notices of the Society of Dilettanti. London, 1855
- Smith, Cecil Harcourt & George Augustin Macmillan, The Society of Dilettanti: Its Regalia and Pictures ... Together with an Outline of Its History, 1914[-]1932. London, 1932
[edit] References
This article incorporates text from the public domain 1907 edition of The Nuttall Encyclopædia.
- The Penguin Dictionary of British and Irish History, ed. Juliet Gardiner
