Herbert Horne (1855 - 1916)

An article from the long defunct Anglo - Italian Review, October 1918. Edited by Edward Hutton, an English  Italophile who wrote several Italian travel books and featuring articles by Nobel Prize winner Grazia Deledda, Norman Douglas & Benedetto Croce. This piece is by the novelist Reginal Turner and is an affectionate tribute to his friend Herbert Horne - art historian, art dealer, architect, typographer and Arts and Craft movement designer. The photo below is of him with his friend and colleague the architect  A.H. Mackmurdo (standing) and an older woman, possibly AHM's mother at a house ('Brooklyn') in Enfield. The story of Horne finding  two Michelangelo drawings for a penny each in the Fulham Road is hard to top...

HERBERT PERCY HORNE, who died in Florence

in May, 1916, belonged to the numerous band of

interesting Englishmen who made Italy their home,

and the memory of whose sojourns there does not

pass with their death. He did not found a family

there as did Walter Savage Landor. He took no

part in public life as did Waddington, who went

casually to Perugia and remained there to become

Syndic. It may even be said that to the majority

of Italians as to Englishmen his name was unknown.

He had an almost morbid love of retirement ;

those who knew him well could not but be amazed

at his slight suspicion--there is no other word-

of hospitality. Yet Herbert Horne was known to

a large circle which included some of the best-known

and ‘many of the most talked about of his contem-

poraries: most of them loved him, all of them

respected him, and he was recognised by them as one

of the most learned, one of the wisest, and one of the

most reliable men of his time.

Horne was indeed a “ character,” a very rare

personality, full of magnetism, yet lacking the

desire or the power of spreading it over a wide area.

It is seldom perhaps that a man of such a solid

reputation as he had among those who knew him

has been so little known to the general public, for

he .lived in an age when more things were known

about eminent people than they knew about them-

selves. He had to a peculiar extent the power to

“ pass in a crowd ” ; it was more peculiar in him that

he desired to do so; and the crowd remained quite

unaware of the stir he created among his friends

and those acquaintances with whom his learning

brought him in contact.

Textile design by Horne

He was grim, he was almost

sullen in manner until he thawed, and then he had

a very distinct and powerful charm. It may be

noted also, for those interested in psychology, that

in spite of his apparent detachment, his retiring,

almost monkish disposition, he was very pleased to

know "people,” and derived a real satisfaction from

the visits to his home of certain very eminent

persons.
Indeed one may this say in all reverence-

for it was a human touch in a nature not overflowing

with human weakness, and was,a source of as

much satisfaction as surprise to his friends.

What he was, wholly and altogether, was a scholar;

he had taken all knowledge to be his province, and

although Italian art was his "special subject"and he

was the first authority on it of his time, he had a

profound acquaintance with all kinds of learning.

His judgment on all subjects was of the soundest,

and hls political views and prophecies during the 

first year of the war more acute and accurate

than most of those writers who, undeterred by the 

obstinate way in which events prove them

wrong, week by week and month by month continue

undismayed to amuse us with their forecasts.

Herbert Horne was born in England in the year

1855, of parents whose fortunes had been derived

from and declined with the business of horse carriers.

At the age of seventeen his extraordinary precocity

had gained him the acquaintance, or at any rate

interest, of many of the most prominent men of

letters in England. His correspondence which

survives bears vivid witness of this. Nature one

may thlnk had designed him for a Don, or even, had

faith been added to his other graces, for an eminent

divine. He preferred to begin  his life as an architect

and, among other buildings, the little chapel in

Hyde Park Place is his work. Like himself there is

a great deal more in it than strikes the eye of the

man who passes it on the motor-bus. He wrote

poems, and published some of them in a little

volume entitled Diversi Colores, of which the

cover was drab and the contents not palpitating

but admirably correct both in workmanship and

feeling. He contributed learned articles tight

packed with accurate information and concentrated

criticism to many periodicals, and he started and

and 'ran' in conjunction with Mr. Selwyn Image

Hobby Horse, the type for which he designed.

In course of time he became the great authority on

Italian art, as sought after for his knowledge as

recognised for his integrity. But whatever nature

or himself intended him to be, passion comes some-

times into most men’s lives, and it came into the life

of Herbert Horne, and when it came - gradual

growth and not love at first sight-it came to stay

with him until the end. He became a collector.[START]

Let other collectors pronounce upon that passion '

Surely they would proclaim it to be the most enf

thralllng and most satisfying of them all. Moreover

it is a passion which as a rule keeps alive and

interests its victims. Even Horne, who died at the

early age of fifty-two, would have died years before

but for his flame, for he was attacked by a cruel

malady which he bore with a courage unsurpassed,

and even to the last never imagined that he was 

near his end.

From the moment his passion got the mastery of

him, his one desire, as becomes a prudent lover

was to find a home for it, a fitting home one which

would not only house the flame but be part of it

He was not the man to do things in a hurry; his was

the true scholar’s, the true collector’s nature.

He moved as if he had all time before him. He

was moreover a poor man, valuing money only in

so far as it fed his flame, and making it only for that

purpose: on himself and on others he spent nothing.

He was a very devout lover. In due time he

formed his desired home, although it took him seven

years to make it his own. It would have taken him

another seven years or more to fashion it to his

liking, but he had been installed in it little more

than a year when he died.

The home he found, and left with its contents to

Italy, was the Palazzo de’ Fossi in the Via de’ Benci,

which no doubt many English people will visit

after the war. It is a fifteenth-century house, but

in course of time it had been adapted to

modern usages. Herbert Horne soon put all that

right. It may surprise some people who like well-lit

rooms and plenty of them - who is there who does

not want one more room ? - to know that Horne’s

first steps were to knock four rooms into one and to

remove the electric light. But even Homer nods, and

let his weakness be confessed, though we hesitate

to speak ill of him. He did put in a bath, and-

alas! -an appliance for heating it. It was, however,

at the very top, next to a tiny sitting-room and

bedroom under the roof to which he had to climb

the many steps, keeping the rest of the Palace,

the huge lofty rooms of three iioors, for his collec-

tions. On the second floor was a room which he

used indeed more than any other, but which had for

'easy' furniture only a very battered armchair

which his faithful housekeeper begged in vain to be

allowed to 'cover.' This was the library, where,

together with many unreadable books, is an

interesting collection of modern works, surprisingly

wide in their interest, most of them presentation

copies from the authors. When in due time the

Palazzo is thrown open to the students and the

public for whose use the owner left it, there will be

many a visitor who will steal away from the more

austere furniture and works of art and the unreadable

books and furtively take down from its shelf a

volume of Swinburne, Mallock’s masterpiece, or the

'Works' of Max Beerbohm.

In that Palazzo is the life collection of Herbert

Horne, except such articles as he called 'rubbish'

and sold or exchanged as well he knew how, to make

money and room for further discoveries. For the

last fifteen years of his life he lived in Florence, with

occasional predatory visits to London. Florence

he loved, and after Florence Italy, though he main-

tained that London was the best place to “ find ’

things. His happiest hunting ground, although his

preserves were wide, was 'in the neighbourhood

of the Fulham Road,' and there it was that he

picked up two of Michel Angelo’s original sketches

for the Sistine Chapel for a penny each. Few joys

in life can be greater to a collector than to know

that you have 'spotted' an original sketch by

Michel Angelo and that its price is one penny.

Another of his treasures is a book of Tiepolo’s

drawings, very familiar to those intimate friends of

great persons whom he delighted to honour.

Another is the relief--with a history which shall

not be recounted here-of S. John the Baptist by

Desiderio of Settignano. Among the many pictures

 is a very sweet S. Stephen which was also

a London 'bargain.'  Horne did not err in taking

Italian pictures out of Italy; rather he acted the

part of the good shepherd and brought them back

again. His Botticclli has a peculiar interest

to one who is not an expert, in that it looks very

unlike a painting by that master, whose life-by the

way-was Horne’s most important literary work.

But the contents of the Palazzo will be known when

it is thrown open to the public and the catalogue

appears. It will furnish proof of the wide interest

as well as the unerring taste of the collector. The

folios of drawings, the gems, the coins, the medals,

the church vessels, will occupy the visitor many an

hour. And the ignorant who are also curious will be

amazed to learn the value of certain extremely plain

but most uncomfortable chairs. They will have

less difficulty in genuinely admiring-without refer-

ence to their value-the marriage chests, the

tables and the church furniture, the bronzes and the

majolica. Let us remember that this is the collec-

tion of a man who was always poor as people went

in his day, but who brought these things together

out of his immense knowledge and whole hearted

devotion, and housed them in a temple which he

restored to its ancient severe glory, and gave from a

great heart to his beloved Italy.

REGINALD TURNER.