Papers of the Alexander family, 1809-1902 (inclusive), 1820-1898 (bulk)

In 1853 the Alexanders, a well-to-do New England couple and their daughter settled in Italy where this collection of scrapbooks was assembled. Francis Alexander (1800-ca. 1880) was born in Killingly, Connecticut, studied painting in New York City in 1820, and shortly thereafter became established in Boston as a successful portrait painter. During a visit to Italy in 1831-1832 he shared rooms with his friend, Thomas Cole, and in 1839 he was elected an honorary member of the National Academy of Design. Lucia Gray Swett (ca. 1814-1916), who became his wife in 1836, was the granddaughter of a prosperous Salem merchant and related to such families as the Lymans, Shaws, and Hallowells. Their only child, Esther Frances, called "Fanny" until 1882 when John Ruskin dubbed her "Francesca," was born in 1837. At an early age she showed talent in drawing, music, and poetry.

In Florence the Alexanders moved among the social, cultural and ecclesiastical elite of northern Italy, and entertained distinguished visitors from overseas. Esther Frances Alexander devoted herself to art and to charity among the Tuscan peasants: some of them considered her a saint. International celebrity came to her with the close friendship that developed in 1882 between the Alexander women and John Ruskin. The English art critic bought Esther Frances Alexander's illustrated manuscript, "Roadside Songs of Tuscany" (published 1883); edited "Christ's Folk in the Apennines" (1887-1889); and discussed her drawing in his Slade Lectures at Oxford. "Tuscan Songs" (1897) and "The Hidden Servants and Other Very Old Stories" (1900) also sold well. In 1905 at the age of ninety, Lucia Gray Alexander published "Il Libro de Oro," a collection of saints' legends. She died in 1916 in Florence. Francesca, who had been dominated and protected by her mother all her life, died there in January 1917.