By the early 1880s, Vansittart had a chess library of around 300 volumes, and in 1883 he purchased the 400-volume library of the late Count Salimbeni. The library contained books and periodicals and had complete runs of the Chess Player's Chronicle, Le Palamède and Deutsche Schachzeitung. Hoffer stated in the Chess Monthly in 1887 that Vansittart had died of heart disease aged 35; Adriano Chicco said in the Dizionario Enciclopedico Degli Scacchi that there was a triple suicide that shocked Rome.
