Basil Kennett

Basil Kennett (21 October 1674 – 3 January 1715) was a Church of England cleric who served as the first chaplain to the British Factory at Leghorn.

An academic, writer and translator, Kennett was elected president of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, serving for a short time before his early death.

According to Biographia Britannica, "he sat down to his studies with remarkable diligence ... so that he soon became distinguished both by his genius, and the extraordinary advances he made in classical and polite literature."

These essays were the first attempts of the kind made in any language at that time; and the book was so well received by the public, that he was thereby encouraged to prosecute his design of promoting and facilitating the study of classical learning.

It was probably about this time, pursuant to the college-statutes, that he entered into Holy Orders: after which, directing the course of his studies in a more particular manner to Divinity, he published in 1705, An Exposition of the Apostles Creed, according to Bishop Pearson, in a new Method, by way of Paraphrase and Annotations.

One of the questions that for a long time poisoned the relationships between the English and Tuscans in those years was the attempt made by the British Factory to obtain permission to celebrate Protestant religious services for its members.

[2] He was at first much harassed by the Inquisition - the Roman Catholic Church's institutions dedicated against heresy - and had to seek the intervention of the English government, which promised military reprisals for any 'molestation given to her chaplain'.