Queer Places:
Fondazione Horne, Via dei Benci, 6, 50100 Firenze FI
Cimitero Evangelico agli Allori, Florence, Italy

Herbert Percy Horne (February 18, 1864 - April 14, 1916) was born in London on February 18, 1864, the eldest son of Horace Horne and Luisa Harmale, and died of tuberculosis in Florence on April 14, 1916, at the age of 52. Regarded as a strangely versatile universal genius, he showed precocious artistic interests at Kensington Grammar School, which were actively encouraged by sympathetic teachers. He initially trained as an architect and, in 1880, encountered the writings of Walter Pater, whose Studies in the History of the Renaissance (1873) deeply fascinated him and shaped his lifelong aesthetic worldview. In 1882, Horne began working in the architectural studio of Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo, becoming his business partner between 1885 and 1890. Together, they founded the Century Guild of Artists and launched its influential art magazine, The Century Guild Hobby Horse (later The Hobby Horse), which attracted contributions and association from prominent cultural figures such as Oscar Wilde and John Ruskin.

Horne possessed exceptional graphic talent, working as a font designer, typographer, and antiquarian. Operating within the orbit of the Arts and Crafts movement, he designed wallpapers, book covers, ex-libris, and complete book layouts, providing engravings for The Studio in 1893 and designing the entire layout of the Burlington Magazine in 1903. He also founded the Riccardi Press in 1909, a leading British private press that initially issued titles for the Medici Society before publishing under its own imprint. As an architect, his Renaissance-inspired designs included the Chapel of the Ascension in Bayswater (completed in 1894 and decorated by his friend Frederic Shields), the Baptistery of Saint Luke in Camberwell (1899), and the Library of the Positivist Church of Humanity in Chapel Street—though all three of these buildings were tragically destroyed during the Second World War.

A pivotal turning point in his life was his first trip to Italy in 1889, followed by a second in 1894, during which he maintained a detailed illustrated journal of his travels alongside his architectural and artistic research. He permanently settled in Italy around 1905, integrating into Florence's esteemed community of art historians that included Aby Warburg and Bernard Berenson. To finance his passion for collecting, he worked as an expert art critic, antiquities mediator, and consultant for institutions like the National Gallery in London and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. His scholarly pursuits culminated in his masterly 1908 monograph on Sandro Botticelli, which remains celebrated for its exceptional quality and thoroughness.

Horne's eager and extremely quality-conscious collecting resulted in an extraordinary assemblage of approximately six thousand works of Florentine art, handicrafts, and artifacts dating from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century, alongside five thousand books—including valuable incunabula—and a myriad of historical documents. In 1911, he purchased the historic Palazzo Corsi on Via de' Benci in the center of Florence, undertaking a meticulous, self-funded restoration that recreated one of the finest examples of a Renaissance domestic interior. On April 12, 1916, gravely ill with tuberculosis, Horne executed his will, gifting the Palazzo "with all that is in it, nothing excluded" to the Italian state. He died two days later and was buried in the Cimitero Evangelico agli Allori in the southern Florentine suburb of Galluzzo. The Museo Horne officially opened to the public in 1921, brought to fruition through the dedication of his friends Carlo Gamba and Giovanni Poggi, who served as the first members of the foundation.

Horne occupied a prominent position within the homosocial, aesthetic, and bohemian networks of fin-de-siècle London and Florence. During the 1880s and 1890s, he maintained a vital relationship as one of the most important patrons of the artist Simeon Solomon, a foundational queer figure who faced severe social ostracism and persecution for his homosexuality. Their extensive correspondence was frequently exchanged via notes and letters sent through the City News Room at Ludgate Circus. Horne was also closely acquainted with Oscar Wilde during the height of the Decadent movement. Furthermore, his 1891 poetry piece "Non Delebo Propter Decem" was selected by Brian Reade for inclusion in the seminal queer literary anthology Sexual Heretics: Male Homosexuality in English Literature from 1850-1900. While biographical records note his involvement in heterosexual relationships—including a shared mistress, Muriel (Edith) Broadbent, with associates Arthur Symons and Selwyn Image—his life within alternative subcultures, homosocial creative circles, and queer artistic networks cements his significance within nineteenth-century sexual histories and queer topography.

References:


Sex, Time and Place: Queer Histories of London, c.1850 to the Present Paperback – April 19, 2018
by Simon Avery and Katherine M. Graham
Sexual Heretics: Male Homosexuality in English Literature from 1850-1900 (Routledge Library Editions: Literature and Sexuality) 1st Edition
by Brian Reade

Other references:

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