{"id":7240,"date":"2016-08-28T10:04:45","date_gmt":"2016-08-28T10:04:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.culturesofknowledge.org\/?p=7240"},"modified":"2016-08-29T11:28:02","modified_gmt":"2016-08-29T11:28:02","slug":"the-invaluable-francis-vernon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.culturesofknowledge.org\/?p=7240","title":{"rendered":"The ‘invaluable’ Francis Vernon"},"content":{"rendered":"

The early modern individual whose calendar of correspondence is the latest to be published in EMLO may have been described as ‘invaluable’ by Alfred Rupert and Marie Boas Hall in their edition of Oldenburg\u2019s correspondence, but one or two additional adjectives come to mind when considering his life: elusive, intriguing, curious, adventurous, and\u00a0tragic \u2014\u00a0any one of these could\u00a0be applied to Francis Vernon<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Vernon_insc_no_cap\"

A memorial of Francis Vernon\u2019s visit to Athens in 1675: his name carved on a marble wall inside the Temple of Hephaestus, on the Agora. (source of image: Alexandre J. Tessier)<\/p><\/div>\n

Vernon, who was born in 1637, was the only Fellow of the early Royal Society to have had the misfortune to have been captured by Barbary pirates and held thereafter for a number of months\u00a0as a slave. Between 1669 and 1672 he was based in Paris, where he worked as a diplomatic agent, but Vernon\u00a0was also an adventurer who\u00a0travelled across Europe as well as\u00a0the length and breadth of\u00a0the Mediterranean. He was well educated, eager\u00a0for knowledge, and he spoke multiple languages. Vernon visited and made notes on ancient Greek sites that are still of relevance to archaeologists three-and-a-half centuries later, although perhaps we should not be admitting that\u00a0he indulged in early modern graffiti and could have been charged today with criminal damage: his name is to be found carved into\u00a0a\u00a0marble wall of the temple of Hephaestus.\u00a0In\u00a0the course of his final journey, Vernon survived a second attack by pirates but was killed in a fight, most likely early in 1677 and somewhere near Isfahan, seemingly in a dispute over the theft of his knife. Few details of the events surrounding his untimely\u00a0death are\u00a0certain. What we do know, however, is that his was no ordinary life and his was no ordinary talent.<\/p>\n

The French scholar, Alexandre J. Tessier<\/a>, who has worked in detail on Sir Joseph Williamson<\/a> (1633\u20131701) and his correspondents, collated the calendar of correspondence sent from Vernon, who was based in Paris, to Williamson, who was located at the English court. Dr Tessier has extensive knowledge of the postal system of this period and has conducted significant research in the\u00a0field, a consequence of which is that users will find, for these letters, the recorded dates of receipt. Dr Tessier\u2019s calendar<\/a> may be viewed alongside that of the letters exchanged between Vernon and Oldenburg<\/a> which were published by the\u00a0Halls in their indispensible edition of Oldenburg\u2019s correspondence. We hope this\u00a0arrangement of parallel calendars within EMLO will prove useful, and we have set up in addition a search\u00a0whereby\u00a0users may view\u00a0letters from all the correspondences in the union catalogue that are from, to, or mention Vernon<\/a>.<\/p>\n

One mystery concerning Vernon that might be possible to resolve\u00a0involves\u00a0his portrait, which\u00a0was recorded\u00a0last in a sale at Sotheby\u2019s, London, on 25 April 1934. The painting, which had been in the possession of C. E. Dashwood, of Wherstead Park, near Ipswich, was described as ‘Venetian School’ and dated to circa<\/em> 1660. It was a half-length portrait, inscribed on the back as follows:\u00a0\u2018Portrait of Mr. Vernon . . .\u00a0a man of distinguished learning and ingenuity, who disliking ye\u00a0measures of King Charles Government refused considerable employment and\u00a0travelled into the East, where he made many valuable collections, most\u00a0of which were lost by his untimely death[.] he was taken prisoner by the\u00a0Algerines and returning to Venice, where he was ransomed, was painted in\u00a0ye slaves dress at ye request of an eminent painter…\u2019 A second version of the\u00a0portrait, a copy,\u00a0was sold as the subsequent lot.\u00a0Dr Tessier has attempted\u00a0to track down these portraits, thus far without success. Should anyone\u00a0happen upon\u00a0an image of Francis Vernon dressed\u00a0his slave outfit, please be in touch …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The early modern individual whose calendar of correspondence is the latest to be published in EMLO may have been described as ‘invaluable’ by Alfred Rupert and Marie Boas Hall in their edition of Oldenburg\u2019s correspondence, but one or two additional adjectives come to mind when considering his life: elusive, intriguing, curious, adventurous, and\u00a0tragic \u2014\u00a0any one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.culturesofknowledge.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.culturesofknowledge.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.culturesofknowledge.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.culturesofknowledge.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.culturesofknowledge.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.culturesofknowledge.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7240\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.culturesofknowledge.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.culturesofknowledge.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.culturesofknowledge.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}