William Aglionby

It has been inferred that he was the son of George Aglionby, who was tutor to William Cavendish, 3rd Earl of Devonshire from 1629, and who married Sibella Smith in 1635, dying in 1643. He had an M.D. degree from the University of Bordeaux.{{cite book|author=Craig Ashley Hanson|title=The English Virtuoso: Art, Medicine, and Antiquarianism in the Age of Empiricism|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oNLHRBH722AC&pg=PA95|date=15 May 2009|publisher=University of Chicago Press|isbn=978-0-226-31587-4|pages=94–6}} Fluency in French later caused him trouble when claiming to be English in France.{{cite book|title=Sir William Trumbull in Paris 1685–1686|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GiA9AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA96|publisher=CUP Archive|page=96|id=GGKEY:UZA45ZPKLNP}}

Aglionby was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1667.[https://collections.royalsociety.org/DServe.exe?dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsqApp=Archive&dsqCmd=Show.tcl&dsqDb=Persons&dsqPos=0&dsqSearch=%28%28text%29%3D%27aglionby%27%29 Royal Society database, Aglionby; William (c 1642 – 1705).] From 1669 to 1671 he acted as tutor for Sir Andrew Henley, 1st Baronet and then for Robert Paston, 1st Earl of Yarmouth.{{cite book|author1=Cambridge University Library|author2=Churchill Babington|author3=Charles Cardale Babington|author4=John Thomas Abdy, William Reynolds Collett, John Henry Webster, John Glover, William Wayman Hutt, Thomas Bendyshe, George Williams, Charles Brodrick Scott, John Eyton Bickersteth Mayor, Edward Ventris|title=A Catalogue of the Manuscripts Preserved in the Library of the University of Cambridge: Ed. for the Syndics of the University Press|url=https://archive.org/details/catalogueofmanus02camb|year=1856|publisher=University Press|pages=[https://archive.org/details/catalogueofmanus02camb/page/457 457]–}}{{cite book|author=John Robertson|title=A Union for Empire: Political Thought and the British Union of 1707|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JUh_OAfTQ-YC&pg=PA40|date=2 November 2006|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-02988-9|page=40 note 14}} In 1679 he was secretary to Sir William Temple at The Hague.

During the 1680s Aglionby was in practice in London as a physician. He was based in Broad Street, and was licensed by the Royal College of Physicians in 1687. At this period he took an active part in the Royal Society.

In 1698 Aglionby was attempting to negotiate a postal treaty with the French Farmer-General of Posts, in Calais. Other diplomatic postings were to Madrid, Turin and Zurich.{{cite book|author=Jeremy Black|title=British Diplomats and Diplomacy, 1688–1800|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_anug566SpAC&pg=PA119|date=1 January 2001|publisher=University of Exeter Press|isbn=978-0-85989-613-9|page=119}}

Aglionby's associates included James Brydges,{{cite book|author=Brian William Cowan|title=The Social Life of Coffee: The Emergence of the British Coffeehouse|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zhzVN39UciQC&pg=PA110|date=1 November 2005|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=978-0-300-13350-9|page=110}} Abraham Hill,{{cite book|title=The London Magazine, Or, Gentleman's Monthly Intelligencer|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=e_UqAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA234|year=1767|publisher=R. Baldwin|page=234}} and Matthew Prior.{{cite book|author=Anna Marie Roos|title=Web of Nature: Martin Lister (1639–1712), the First Arachnologist|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rcgi3MseXl0C&pg=PA381|date=12 July 2011|publisher=BRILL|isbn=978-90-04-20703-5|page=381}}

Aglionby's major work was Painting Illustrated in Three Diallogues {{sic}} (1685). It has been described as the first original English book of its kind, based on the theory that Italian history painting was the leading genre of art;{{cite book|author=Craig Ashley Hanson|title=The English Virtuoso: Art, Medicine, and Antiquarianism in the Age of Empiricism|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oNLHRBH722AC&pg=PA93|date=15 May 2009|publisher=University of Chicago Press|isbn=978-0-226-31587-4|pages=93–}} it contained eleven biographies of Italian painters.{{cite book|author=Patrick Doorly|title=Truth About Art, The|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oegtAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA42|date=30 August 2013|publisher=John Hunt Publishing|isbn=978-1-78099-841-1|page=42}}

Aglionby used Giorgio Vasari's Lives, but selectively, and imposing his own views.{{cite book|author=Philip Lindsay Sohm|title=The Artist Grows Old: The Aging of Art and Artists in Italy, 1500–1800|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8PAFLLKHYB0C&pg=PA136|year=2007|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=978-0-300-12123-0|page=136}}{{cite book|author=Professor David Cast|title=The Ashgate Research Companion to Giorgio Vasari|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WF68AgAAQBAJ&pg=PT290|date=28 February 2014|publisher=Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.|isbn=978-1-4724-1392-5|page=290}} He began with lives of Cimabue and Giotto, interpolating in the series then a dialogue on the history of painting. There followed: Leonardo da Vinci, Andrea del Sarto, Raphael, Giorgione, Michelangelo, Giulio Romano, Pierino del Vaga, Titian and Donatello.{{cite book|author=John Rigby Hale|author-link=John Rigby Hale|title=England and the Italian Renaissance: The Growth of Interest in its History and Art|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=t4F0gg2tHhQC&pg=PA45|date=17 February 2009|publisher=John Wiley & Sons|isbn=978-1-4051-5222-8|page=45}} Other sources used include Gian Pietro Bellori and Carlo Cesare Malvasia.{{cite book|author=conte Carlo Cesare Malvasia|title=Malvasia's Life of the Carracci: Commentary and Translation|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UrI_nLwBWKcC&pg=PA37|year=2000|publisher=Penn State Press|isbn=0-271-01899-2|page=37}} Dismissive of Nicolas Poussin, Aglionby mentions favourably if not at length four artists from northern Europe: Dürer, Holbein, Rubens, Van Dyck.{{cite book|author=Craig Ashley Hanson|title=The English Virtuoso: Art, Medicine, and Antiquarianism in the Age of Empiricism|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oNLHRBH722AC&pg=PA106|date=15 May 2009|publisher=University of Chicago Press|isbn=978-0-226-31587-4|page=106}} The two latter were among the 12 Vite of Bellori, from which he borrows heavily.{{cite book|author=Giovanni Pietro Bellori|title=Giovan Pietro Bellori: The Lives of the Modern Painters, Sculptors and Architects: A New Translation and Critical Edition|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Lm9gs8mXwOUC&pg=PA1|date=21 November 2005|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-78187-9|page=1}}

From a nationalistic point of view, Aglionby pointed to a revival of the arts at the Restoration of 1660, and promoted the painter John Riley, and the sculptor Grinling Gibbons.{{cite book|author=Kevin Sharpe|author-link=Kevin Sharpe (historian)|title=Reading Authority and Representing Rule in Early Modern England|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GTtyiYgExk0C&pg=PA204|date=6 June 2013|publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing|isbn=978-1-4411-5675-4|pages=204–}}{{cite ODNB|id=23651|title=Riley, John|first=J. Douglas|last=Stewart}} As apologetics for English art, which had not contributed to history painting, he argued for its success in portrait painting.{{cite book|author=Homi K. Bhabha|author-link=Homi K. Bhabha|title=Nation and Narration|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4FK5-h2UlSkC&pg=PT151|date=13 May 2013|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-136-76930-6|page=151}}

• Art of Chymistry: As it is now Practiced (1668), translation from Cours de Chymie by Pierre Thibaut
• The History of the Pope's Nephews (1669), translation from Gregorio Leti
• The Present State of the United Provinces (1669).{{cite book|author=C. D. Van Strien|title=British Travellers in Holland During the Stuart Period: Edward Browne and John Locke As Tourists in the United Provinces|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Zcgm0pv1R74C&pg=PA44|year=1993|publisher=Brill|isbn=90-04-09482-2|page=44}} Based on Les Délices de la Hollande (1651) by Jean de Parival.
• Whole Art of the Stage (1684), translation from François Hedelin
• [https://archive.org/details/paintingillustra00agli Painting Illustrated in Three Diallogues] (1685) on archive.org

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Category:1640s births

Category:1705 deaths

Category:17th-century English medical doctors

Category:English art historians

Category:Fellows of the Royal Society

Category:17th-century English diplomats

Category:Year of birth uncertain

Category:17th-century English translators