Vincenzo Martinelli in England

In most histories of eighteenth-century Italian literature a few lines are devoted to the work of Vincenzo Martinelli, and, since the most productive years of his life were spent in England, his name is to be found in lists of emigrant Italian writers. Scarcely any attempt, however, has been made to assess the value of Martinelli's work as a whole, or to provide more than the briefest of details about his twenty-six years in this country. It is true that his voluminous writings have little intrinsic value, but as a divulgatore he deserves more attention than he has received. Almost all the energies of his maturity were directed towards explaining England to Italy and Italy to England, and it is clear that his personality and contacts gave him opportunities which were not neglected. When he first came to London in 1748, the virtual rediscovery of many fields of Italian literature was scarcely more than beginning in England, and Italian interest in English social and political institutions was developing but uninformed. When he returned to his own country at the end of 1774, the position in both spheres was very different. The credit for some of this change can be given to Baretti, but Martinelli played his part. London in the middle and later years of the eighteenth century was full of resident Italians, many of them adventurers and rascals, or merely insignificant hangers-on of the brawling Opera House world, but there was also a leaven of honest sober men whose abilities gained them a place in influential English circles, and who took advantage of their opportunities as unofficial ambassadors. Studies of the life and work of such individuals can help to explain the remarkable development of Anglo-Italian understanding and sympathy which bore such valuable fruit in the following century

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