Joseph Smith (1682–1770)
Joseph Smith (c. 1682 – Venice, 6 November 1770), often known as Consul Smith, was the British consul at Venice from 1744 to 1760. Dates given in the ''London Gazette'' prior to 1752 are old style, by modern standards, with the year beginning on 1 January, rather than 25 March, this date falls in 1744 He was a patron of artists, most notably Canaletto, a collector and connoisseur, banker to the British community at Venice, and a major draw on the British Grand Tour. His collection of drawings was bought for George III of Great Britain and forms a nucleus of the Royal Collection of drawings in the Print Room at Windsor Castle. Smith the collector Joseph Smith, a man of obscure origins, was educated at Westminster School before travelling to Venice. He took up residence there in 1700 in the import-export trade and merchant banking house of Thomas Williams, the British consul at that time. Smith eventually headed the partnership of Williams and Smith and made a modest fortune. ...
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Venezia 2009, Palazzo Smith Mangilli Valmarana - Foto Di Paolo Steffan
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The islands are in the shallow Venetian Lagoon, an enclosed bay lying between the mouths of the Po and the Piave rivers (more exactly between the Brenta and the Sile). In 2020, around 258,685 people resided in greater Venice or the ''Comune di Venezia'', of whom around 55,000 live in the historical island city of Venice (''centro storico'') and the rest on the mainland (''terraferma''). Together with the cities of Padua and Treviso, Venice is included in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area (PATREVE), which is considered a statistical metropolitan area, with a total population of 2.6 million. The name is derived from the ancient Veneti people who inhabited the region by the 10th century BC. The city was historically ...
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