Discover diplomat, ambassador, physician John Finch (Sir)

Qualifications: diplomat, ambassador, physician, art collector, book collector, commissioner (person who orders works)
The major part of Finch's library, bequeathed to his nephew Daniel Finch, was destroyed in a fire at Burley House.

Deceased: London (England) 1682
buried in Christ's College, Cambridge (GB) in the same grave as his life-long friend Sir Thomas Baines (1622-1680)

Family relationships this field records any family relationship to one or more other artist(s).: Youngest and fourth son of Sir Heneage Finch (1580–1631), speaker of the House of Commons, and his first wife, Frances, daughter of Sir Edmund Bell (died 1627) (his father's 2nd wife was Elizabeth Cradock, who had two children with him: Finch was particularly close to his half-sister, Anne Conway, Viscountess Conway and Killultagh (1631–1679). His eldest brother was Heneage Finch (1621–1682), subsequently lord chancellor and first Earl of Nottingham.

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Biographical information

Active in

Eton (Berkshire) 1642
Londen (Engeland) 1642
admitted to the Inner Temple in 1642
Oxford (Engeland) 1642 - 1647
in the same year admitted to Balliol, graduating as BA 1647
Cambridge (Engeland) 1647 - 1649
incorporated at Christ's College, graduating as MA in 1649, where he met his lifelong companion Sir Thomas Baines, with whom he went on a Grand Tour
Padua 1651 - 1665
graduated in medicine (MD) from the University of Padua in 1657, together with Baines. While in Italy, he became a member of the scientific circle of Prince (later Cardinal) Leopoldo de' Medici, patron of the Accademia del Cimento. From 1659 until 1665 he held the post of professor of anatomy at Pisa.
Cambridge (Engeland) 1661 - 1665
Finch (and Baines) returned to Christ's as teachers in 1660, where he took his MD in absentia; knighted the same year; ‘socius extraordinarius’ of Royal College of Physicians; fellow the Royal Society 1663
Florence 1665 - 1670
Minister to the Ducal Court at Florence.
Rome
cultural visit
Napels
cultural visit
Londen (Engeland) 1672
at court
Italië 1673
en route to Turkey
Istanbul (stad) 1674-03-18 - 1681-11
ambassador to the Sublime Porte of the Ottoman Empire in Constantinople; correspondent of the Royal Society while in Italy and Turkey; returned home after the death of Baines
Londen (Engeland) 1682 - 1682-11-18
died of pleurisy (ODNB)

born in

active in

died in

Literature

T. A. Malloch, Finch and Baines: a seventeenth-century friendship, Cambridge (GB) 1917 [KB]
J. Wilson, 'My favorite painting; Sir John Finch and Sir Thomas Baines by Carlo Dolci', Country Life 52 (March 9, 2022), p. 52
S. Hutton, 'Finch, Sir John', in: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. London 2004/2009 (with extensive bibliography)

External links: Hofstede de Groot index card 1
Hofstede de Groot index card 2

Creation date: 2022-09-07; Last modified date: 2023-02-09

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