The British Institute

The British Institute of Florence, established in 1917 and granted a Royal Charter in 1923, was the first of the British cultural institutes to operate overseas and served as a model for the establishment of the British Council in 1934. In the drawing rooms and libraries of pre-war Florence local residents, among them poets, journalists, university professors, publishers and journalists such as Herbert Trench, Lina Waterfield, Guido Ferrando, Guido Biagi and Aldo Sorani, discussed the idea of a reading room, library and space for cultural exchange between Britain and Italy. Once war began, British propaganda to promote Italian entry into the war and continued encouragement of the population to support the war after 1915 gave a sense of urgency to what had been a peacetime project. When the Institute was founded it was done so with the support of John Buchan at the new Ministry of Information in London and Rennel Rodd, the British Ambassador in Rome