[3] Measured drawing

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Sir John Soane office drawings: the drawings of Sir John Soane and the office of Sir John Soane
- Soane's architectural education: Royal Academy and Italy including measured drawings: 1770-1780
  - Soane in Italy: measured drawings made or copied, 1778-80
    - Italy: Rome: Pantheon (later Church of Santa Maria ad Martyres), 1778 (8)

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Reference number

SM 45/3/54

Purpose

[3] Measured drawing

Aspect

Elevation titled LA.FACCIATA.DELLA.ROTONDA.A.ROMA.OGGI.CHIESA.DI.SANTA. MARIA.AD.MARTYRES

Scale

bar scale of 1/9 in to 1 ft (labelled PIEDI INGLESI)

Inscribed

as above, M AGRIPPA L F COS TERTIVM FECIT (on frieze, as well as the long Latin inscription on the entablature beginning IMP CAES L SEPTIMUS ...), some dimensions given including To top of Pedimen^t of Portico 82.8½ French / 96.3 - (presumably French feet and English feet, the French foot being the equivalent of 12¾ English inches)

Signed and dated

I.SOANE (and in small capitals) FECIT IN ROMAE 1778, the 'E' of Soane added later

Medium and dimensions

Pen, pale blue, raw umber and warm sepia washes, watercolour technique (to indicate masonry, brick and weathering), shaded, within triple ruled and (added later) black wash border on laid paper backed with wove paper (633 x 988)

Hand

Soane

Watermark

obscured

Notes

This drawing was used for Soane's Royal Academy lectures.

The Pantheon was, and is, for architects, the key building of ancient Rome. First built in 25BC by Marcus Vispanis Agrippa, it was rebuilt on a circular plan (the portico with its inscription being re-used) by Hadrian in A.D.120-5. And consecrated as a church in 608.

Literature

P.du Prey, 'Soane and Hardwick in Rome: a Neo-Classical partnership', Architectural History, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain, XV, 1972, pp.64-5
P.du Prey, (J.Lever editor), Catalogue of the Drawings Collection of the Royal Institute of British Architects, volume G-K, 1973, p.92²
P.du Prey, John Soane's architectural education 1753-80, 1977, pp.117-9

Level

Drawing

Digitisation of the Drawings Collection has been made possible through the generosity of the Leon Levy Foundation

If you have any further information about this object, please contact us: drawings@soane.org.uk

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.

Browse (via the vertical menu to the left) and search results for Drawings include a mixture of Concise catalogue records – drawn from an outline list of the collection – and fuller records where drawings have been catalogued in more detail (an ongoing process).