Editing Austen Henry Layard (section)

===Retirement in Venice===
[[File:Henry Austen Layard Fratelli Vianelli BNF Gallica.jpg|thumb|upright|Austen Henry Layard (1883)]]
Layard retired to [[Venice]]. There he took up residence in the sixteenth-century palazzo on the grand canal named [[Ca Cappello]], just behind [[Campo San Polo]], and which he had commissioned historian [[Rawdon Brown]], another long-time British resident of Venice, to purchase for him in 1874.<ref>{{cite ODNB| url =http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/16218?| title =Layard, Sir Austen Henry (1817–1894), archaeologist and politician | first = Jonathan |last = Parry | year = 2006 | doi =10.1093/ref:odnb/16218 }}</ref>
In Venice he devoted much of his time to collecting pictures of the Venetian school, and to writing on Italian art.
On this subject he was a disciple of his friend [[Giovanni Morelli]], whose views he embodied in his revision of [[Franz Theodor Kugler|Franz Kugler]]'s ''Handbook of Painting, Italian Schools'' (1887). He wrote also an introduction to [[Constance Jocelyn Ffoulkes]]'s translation of Morelli's ''Italian Painters'' (1892–1893), and edited that part of ''[[Murray's Handbooks for Travellers|Murray's Handbook]] of Rome'' (1894) which deals with pictures. In 1887 he published, from notes taken at the time, a record of his first journey to the East, entitled ''Early Adventures in Persia, Susiana and Babylonia''. The late nineteenth century English novelist [[George Gissing]] thought it 'one of the most interesting books' vowing to 'read it again some day'.<ref>Coustillas, Pierre ed. London and the Life of Literature in Late Victorian England: the Diary of George Gissing, Novelist. Brighton: Harvester Press, 1978, p.318.</ref> An abbreviation of this work, which as a book of travel is even more delightful than its predecessors, was published in 1894, shortly after the author's death, with a brief introductory notice by Lord Aberdare. Layard also from time to time contributed papers to various learned societies, including the Huguenot Society, of which he was first president.<ref name="EB1911"/>

He died on 5 July 1894 at his residence 1 Queen Anne Street, Marylebone, London.<ref>Philip Temple, Colin Thom, Andrew Saint (2017) [https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/architecture/sites/bartlett/files/chapter10_queen_anne_street.pdf Survey of London: South-East Marylebone] Volumes 51 and 52 Yale University Press</ref>  After a post mortem autopsy his remains were cremated at the Woking Crematorium in Surrey.  His ashes were interred in the cemetery of [[Canford Magna Parish Church]] in Dorset, England.