Giuseppe Baretti (1719-1789), Writer and friend of Dr Johnson

Sitter associated with 5 portraits
Baretti left his home town of Turin at the age of sixteen. He lived in a number of Italian cities, supporting himself through his writing. He moved to London in 1751, where he obtained work as an Italian teacher. The writer Mrs Charlotte Lennox offered him English lessons in return for tuition in Italian, and introduced him to her circle of artists and literary friends, including Henry Fielding, Sir Joshua Reynolds, David Garrick and Samuel Johnson. Baretti became a promoter of Italian language and literature, and worked to make contemporary Italian culture accessible to the English.