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Purpose

Details of cornice at Palestrina (Praeneste). Measured drawing of moulding by an Italian or Spanish draughtsman, acquired c.1759-64 (1)

Notes

Ancient Praeneste (modern Palestrina) lies about 36 kilometres east of Rome and was the hill site for the 2nd century BC sanctuary dedicated to the goddess Fortuna Primigenia. Abandoned and built over, the upper slopes were dominated from the late medieval period by the Palazzo Barberini, above a labyrinth of narrow streets. The remains of Palestrina were recorded and reconstructed in drawings by architects from the 16th century onwards.

LITERATURE. D. Hemsoll & E. Caplin, Palestrina: the Temple of Fortun as an inspiration to architects, catalogue of an exhibition at the RIBA Heinz Gallery, 1989.

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Sir John Soane's collection includes some 30,000 architectural, design and topographical drawings which is a very important resource for scholars worldwide. His was the first architect’s collection to attempt to preserve the best in design for the architectural profession in the future, and it did so by assembling as exemplars surviving drawings by great Renaissance masters and by the leading architects in Britain in the 17th and 18th centuries and his near contemporaries such as Sir William Chambers, Robert Adam and George Dance the Younger. These drawings sit side by side with 9,000 drawings in Soane’s own hand or those of the pupils in his office, covering his early work as a student, his time in Italy and the drawings produced in the course of his architectural practice from 1780 until the 1830s.

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Contents of Details of cornice at Palestrina (Praeneste). Measured drawing of moulding by an Italian or Spanish draughtsman, acquired c.1759-64 (1)