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Unfinished academic study showing a plan for an octagonal building with a central circular court with columns and niches, surrounded by alternating square and oval halls, some of which have two staircases. The main façade has a three-bay portico.
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Reference number
Adam vol.55/128
Purpose
Unfinished academic study showing a plan for an octagonal building with a central circular court with columns and niches, surrounded by alternating square and oval halls, some of which have two staircases. The main façade has a three-bay portico.
Aspect
Plan
verso section, details
Inscribed
Inscribed in ink on drawing 128
verso inscribed in pencil Villa. and Justiniani/ Abbe Stonor
Signed and dated
- Undated, probably 1755 - 56
Medium and dimensions
Pencil, black chalk
132 x 127, trimmed at base
Hand
Robert Adam
Verso
Capriccio in pencil and pen showing part of a section through a domed building. Also on the sheet are three drawings of a penis.
Inscription: Abbé Christopher Stonor was in Rome from 1748 (see J. Fleming, Robert Adam and His Circle in Edinburgh & Rome, London, 1962, pp.153, 219; also J. Ingamells, A Dictionary of British and Irish Travellers in Italy, 1701-1800, New Haven and London, 1977, p.900). The 'Villa Justiniani' presumably means the Villa Giustiniani at San Giovanni in Laterano, Italy (see I. Barsali, Ville di Roma: Lazio, Milan, 1970, p.393).
Notes
This plan is a variation of the square plan in Adam vol.55/170; there are other centralised plans of this type in volume 9 (see Adam vol.9/2, 40 and 68) and in Adam vol.2/188, which may have been drawn at a later date.
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