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  • image SM 45/2/21, 44/9/14, 44/9/13
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Reference number

SM 45/2/21, 44/9/14, 44/9/13

Purpose

Copies of measured drawings after ? Giuseppe Manocchi, c.1780 (3)

Aspect

1 Part plan of a circular room showing 4 semicircular alcoves and 3 doorways, the half-plan of the ceiling shown in dotted lines
2 Part plan of a stucco ceiling after one at the Villa Hadriana
3 Part plan of a ceiling with compartments decorated with figures from Greek mythology including Hercules, centaurs and Neptune

Scale

(1-3) to a scale

Inscribed

(1) (Soane) Villa Pamfili (2) (Soane) Soffito che si conserva in Villa Pamfili opera d'Algardi in Stucco, copiato dalle Villa Adriana and (another hand, Manocchio ?) Mezzo della Sopra (3) (Soane) Villa Pamfili

Medium and dimensions

Pen, poché, pencil within double ruled border on laid paper (400 x 485); pen and sepia wash on laid paper (363 x 530); pen and sepia wash on laid paper (356 x 538)

Hand

(1-3) ? Giuseppe Manocchi (c.1731-82)

Watermark

(1) cartouche with bend surmounted by fleur-de-lis and crescent between V and L below; (2-3) fleur-de-lis within crowned cartouche;

Notes

The inscriptions (except one) are in Soane's hand but the drawings are not. Professor du Prey brought attention to drawings 2 and 3 and noted (January/February 2009) that they are identical to tracings by Thomas Hardwick (1752-1829, in the 'Thomas Hardwick albums', RIBA Drawings Collection) that are after Giuseppe Manocchi, a Roman draughtsman of whom little is known. There are also drawings signed by him (and dated 1765 or 1766) in the Adam collection at the Soane Museum.

It seems that these three drawings are by Manocchi, bought by Soane in about 1780. Two of the plans show ceilings that survive in good condition in the Villa Pamphili later Doria Pamphili and sometimes known as the Villa del Bel Respiro; sited to the south-west of the centre of Rome just outside the Porta San Pancrazio (Via San Pancrazio). The Villa was built 1644-52 by Alessandro Algardi (1595-1654) better known as a sculptor, who also designed the summer theatre and several fountains.

For another drawing by Manocchi see Italy: Tivoli: Hadrian's Villa: drawing 4

Literature

P.du Prey, John Soane's architectural education 1753-80, 1977, pp.272, 522 fn.34

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).