~ The Founding of the British Institute of Florence ~ The British Institute of Florence was established in wartime, in 1917. In the drawing rooms and libraries of pre-war Florence local residents, among them poets, university professors, publishers and journalists such as Herbert Trench, Lina Waterfield, Guido Ferrando, Guido Biagi, Angiolo Orvieto and Aldo Sorani, had discussed the idea of a reading room, library and space for cultural exchange between Britain and Italy. Once war began, British propaganda to promote Italy's entry into the war in 1915 and encourage popular support for it gave a sense of urgency to the project. When the Institute was founded it was done so with the support of John Buchan, the novelist, at the Ministry of Information in London and Rennell Rodd, the British Ambassador in Rome. By 1923 the Institute was well enough established to receive a Royal Charter. In 1915 and 1916 British propaganda in Italy was a modest enterprise, looked on with distaste by Rennell Rodd. In Castle in Italy (London, 1961) Lina Waterfield describes her spontaneous involvement in propaganda work in Florence and Tuscany, carried out very much in an Italian context, rather than under any direction from London or Rome. Lina worked with Angiolo Orvieto's organization, 'Assistenza e Resistenza' in the 'immense hall above the church of Or San Michele', packing up parcels of clothing for soldiers at the Front, and speaking in favour of the war in villages outside Florence. Once refugees began to arrive in large numbers from the north of the country, she was involved in relief efforts. Meanwhile, in June 1916, the writer Edward Hutton sent his first report to the British Foreign Office on the situation in Tuscany and by October of that year, with Rodd's tentative approval and under the guidance of Enzo Biagi, head of the Biblioteca Marucelliana, he had set up a propaganda bureau in Florence, mainly for the distribution of news to smaller papers. It is from the work of these two people that the British Institute was formed: 'an amalgamation of Hutton's propaganda bureau and Mrs. Lina Waterfield's English Library' (Christopher Seton-Watson 'British Propaganda in Italy 1914-1918' in Inghilterra e Italia nel '900: atti del convegno di Bagni di Lucca, La Nuova Italia, 1972). In February 1917, when John Buchan became head of the new Department of Information, the writer Algar Thorold was appointed to supervise propaganda work throughout Italy. Now a number of things happened in quick succession, all leading to what was to become the fledgling British Institute.

♦ In October 1917 Lina Waterfield gave evidence to an educational committee sitting in the House of Lords, providing information on the distribution of books in Italy.

♦ On 12 November 1917 Hutton reported to Buchan that space had been rented in the Loggia Rucellai, where he planned to open a 'Circolo del Fronte Unico' with offices and a library of allied war literature. Lina's version was this: that the pre-war project for an Anglo-Italian library, on the lines of the French Institute in Florence, had lapsed and needed reviving. She discussed the plan with Hutton, 'who thought it excellent and we both agreed the library should be entirely English and under English management'. Hutton called on Lina to find suitable premises, she obtained a lease of the Loggia Rucellai from her friends the Conte and Contessa Rucellai: 'The large room on the ground floor, a lovely example of fifteenth-century architecture with fluted columns and curved ceilings, made a good reading-room for the students, while upstairs were class-rooms and offices' (Castle in Italy).

♦ In early December 1917 the poet Herbert Trench and the philosopher Guido Ferrando presented a plan to the Foreign Office for what they called an Anglo-Latin Library; they suggested Lina Waterfield as managing secretary and added that it was inadvisable that this 'academic scheme should be confused with propaganda work'. On 17 December Algar Thorold wrote to Buchan that he had been aware for some time of a divergence of opinion between Edward Hutton and Lina Waterfield, 'on propaganda methods, and in my judgment Mrs W. was and is entirely in the right.' This had come to a head over the proposed 'Anglo-Latin Library'.

♦ On 21 December 1917 Lina explained to Buchan her disagreement with Hutton over the 'English Library'. By the end of the year, Hutton was recalled to London to work with the military attaché General Mola, and Lina Waterfield was put in charge of British propaganda in Florence.

Algar Thorold, enthusiastic about expanding the Library into an Institute, wrote to Buchan, 'I feel that it may be made a very great success for propaganda purposes'. He described the aim of the Institute as 'fostering and strengthening mutual relations between Britain and Italy, by promoting the study and knowledge of the language, literature and life of the English-speaking and Italian-speaking peoples'. These sentiments were to make their way into the petition for the Royal Charter.

~ The Institute was formally opened on 27 December 1917 ~

~ The awarding of the Royal Charter in 1923 ~

♦ In February 1918 the Institute was put on a more formal footing with the appointment of the scholar Arthur Spender as Director. The Institute moved into premises in via de Conti where there was a lecture hall and a number of smaller rooms for the library and classrooms.

♦ In the early summer of 1918 the first issue of the Institute's journal La Vita Britannica, was published.

♦ In June 1918 the Institute was formally opened in its new premises by the Ambassador, Rennell Rodd.

♦ In the summer of 1918 the first issue of Edward Hutton's Anglo-Italian Review appeared.

♦ In 1919 the Institute school opened its doors for the teaching of English.

♦ In December 1919 the poet and climber Geoffrey Young, after a visit to Florence, wrote to Janet Trevelyan about the British Institute. [Young had been in George Macaulay Trevelyan's Ambulance Unit, serving in northern Italy during the war]. Janet was to serve as Hon. Sec. to the Institute's Council in London until the late 1940s.

Funding that came to the British Institute through the Foreign Office ended in the early 1920s. An appeal led to substantial subsidies from Walter Becker, Arthur Serena, Daniel Stevenson and Renée Courthauld. The exigencies involved were not to the taste of Arthur Spender who was replaced by Harold Goad in 1922. Goad oversaw the move from via dei Conti to the Palazzo Antinori. By the time the Institute petitioned for the Royal Charter, which owed much to the work of Rennell Rodd and Janet Trevelyan, it knew exactly what it stood for and what it wanted to achieve. It had begun courses of lectures, published a journal, La Vita Britannica, and was in the process of building its library. The Institute's objectives, defined in the 1923 Charter, were to promote understanding between the citizens of Italy and the countries of the British Commonwealth through the maintenance in Florence of a library illustrating Italian and British culture and the promotion of the study of both the English and Italian language and the cultures of both countries.

~ Accompanying images ~ All the items shown here come from the archive and library of the British Institute.

The Right Hon. Sir James Rennell Rodd Social and diplomatic memoirs (3 vols., London, 1925)

Lina Waterfield Castle in Italy: an autobiography (London, 1961)

Lina Waterfield’s O.B.E., awarded in October 1921 for ‘services in Tuscany in British interests’.

Mrs Aubrey Waterfield [Lina Waterfield]. A bronze by the Scottish-Canadian painter, and occasional sculptor, James Kerr Lawson. This was given to the British Institute by Lina Waterfield in 1948.

The second issue of The Anglo-Italian Review, edited by Edward Hutton, May 1918.

Edward Hutton photographed in 1967 Hutton was awarded the Cavaliere dell’Ordine della Corona d’Italia 1917 in recognition of his wartime services to Anglo-Italian co-operation and the Commendatore dell’Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana in1959. In the UK he was awarded the gold medal of the British Academy for his work in the field of Italian studies in 1924.

Early supporters of the British Institute, from left to right, as named and described on the reverse of the photograph: Miss de Castelvecchio, Prof. of Italian at Univ. of Birmingham; Capt. H. Goad, C.B.E., Director of the British Institute of Florence; Mrs. G.M. Trevelyan, Hon. Sec., British Italian League [and the Council of the British Institute of Florence]; Signora Boschetti, Italian Sec., British Italian League; Lady Rodd; Miss Carey, who served in Mr. Trevelyan’s Ambulance Unit for Italy.

John Buchan writes from the Department of Information the day after Algar Thorold opened Lina Waterfield’s Library in the Loggia Rucellai in Florence, December 1917.

Two propaganda postcards. One supports Italy and its people, the other shows visiting British sailors from the ship ‘Hope’ standing outside the Loggia Rucellai in early 1918.

One of the documents presented to the Foreign Office Committee on British Communities Abroad in March 1920. In his memorandum Guido Ferrando gives his summary of the founding and the first two years of the British Institute. In it Ferrando writes that ‘the Institute was designed to promote intellectual relations between the two nations, to diffuse the knowledge of English and of the most important social and economic problems of the British Empire and to offer a permanent meeting place for English and Italian scholars. To accomplish its objectives the Institute would: make a good library; give frequent lectures in English and Italian; teach the English language and literature scientifically; and encourage the foundation and exchange of scholarships.

An early appeal for support of the British Institute, written by the first Director, Arthur Spender.

The first issue of La Vita Britannica: rivista bimestrale edita dall’Istituto Britannico di Firenze, 1918 volume.

In Geoffrey Young’s four page letter to Janet Trevelyan, written in December 1919, he writes, ‘Thirdly, and most important. And I want George to take this up too. The matter of the British Institute of Florence. I have been astonished to find such a big, successful, excellent venture should have grown up in the war; and that we should not have known of it! I enclose Spender, the Director’s, Report. And you may have seen his Rivista, La Vita Britannica, which is the best thing of its kind I have met. I like him well, and he is admirable in the post’.

The courtyard of Palazzo Antinori, home to the British Institute from 1922 until 1966. To the left is the entrance to Haskard, Catardi & Co., bankers.

The first and last pages of the Royal Charter, 14 May 1923.

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