Francis Boott (composer)

[1] In the 1850s, following the death of his wife, Boott took his young daughter Elizabeth (Lizzie) (1846–88) to Florence, Italy, where he studied harmony with Luigi Picchianti.

[1] He was friends with others in the Anglophone community in Florence, including Henry and William James, the Brownings, Isa Blagden and Constance Fenimore Woolson.

He also composed hymns for church services, many of which were included in the hymnal for King's Chapel in Boston.

[5] While his melodies and piano accompaniments are considered "commonplace, with little harmonic interest",[8] his choices of texts were sophisticated, embracing the literary world of his time.

In 1857 John Sullivan Dwight wrote that his songs are "not strikingly original, but graceful and facile, much to be preferred to the popular sweetish, sentimental type".