Lord Holland
The salon of Henry, Third Baron Holland (1773-1840), and of Lady Holland was one of the most famous and prestigious English meeting places in the first few decades of the 19th century. Members of the Whig party, of which Lord Holland was one of the most active representatives, figures from English and overseas publishing, art and culture met at Holland House, Kensington. One of the attractions of the salon was its well-stocked library, which featured over 10,000 volumes that the owner made available to friends and acquaintances. A man of liberal political ideas, Lord Holland was in favour of the cause of Italian independence and in the first decades of the 19th century he opened his home to many exiles, making it a reference point for Italian culture in England.
Foscolo was introduced to the salon in September 1816, just after his arrival in London, by Giuseppe Binda, a man from Lucca he had met in Florence in 1812 who was a guest at Holland House at the time and had contacted the poet as soon as he arrived in England; another Italian, Serafino Buonaiuti, who had been a theatre poet and libretto writer, lived in Holland House, where he worked as a language teacher, assistant librarian and secretary. Lord and Lady Holland communicated with Foscolo in French or in Italian, frequently asking him about the Italian political situation which they followed closely.
Lord Holland's salon was a unique opportunity for the exiled writer to make contact with many figures from the worlds of culture, publishing and journalism: the poet Samuel Rogers, the publisher John Murray, the literary man John Hobhouse, John Russell, a Whig politician and man of letters, and William Stuart Rose, who the poet had already met in Milan. Many of the publishing opportunities and magazine collaborations that materialized, especially at the start of his period in England, were linked to acquaintances made through Lord Holland.
