Frederick Rolfe: Statement concerning Chronicles of the House of Borgia (London, 1901)

Frederick William Rolfe, styled Baron Corvo (1860-1913), writer, was born in London in 1860. Leaving home at fouteen Rolfe worked in a succession of schools before he converted to Catholicism in 1884 and enrolled at St. Mary's College at Oscott in 1887 with the intention of joining the priesthood. Rolfe was an eccentric, arrogant, vain man who picked quarrels, bore grudges and never forgot a slight. This attitude led to his expulsion from St Mary's in 1888 and his forcible ejection from the Scots College in Rome a year later. Destitute and alone he was taken in by the duchess of Sforze-Cesarini, who gave him the title Baron Corvo before he returned to Britain in 1890. He then spent time in Christchurch, Aberdeen, Holywell workhouse and London, all the while leaving a stream of debtors and disillusioned and antagonised acquaintances behind him. Rolfe painted and worked on photographic techniques, but failed to make a success of these artforms. He managed to eke out a living through writing, contributing poems and articles to magazines. In 1898 he published Stories Toto Told Me and Chronicles of the House of Borgia in 1901. Rolfe's most successful work, Hadrian the Seventh, a semi-autobiographical work of a seminary drop-out becoming pope, was published in 1904.

Rolfe left for Venice in 1908 where he lived permanently in debt and often homeless. He died of pneumonia there in 1913.

Pasted in UL copy of the book, and removed 1935.

Please cite as Cambridge University Library, Department of Manuscripts and University Archives, Frederick Rolfe: Statement concerning Chronicles of the House of Borgia (London, 1901), MS Add.2768.12