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Italy: Tivoli: Temple of Vesta (or Temple of the Sibyl), 1778-80 and later (9)

Notes

The small circular Temple of Vesta at Tivoli near Rome was an important and continuous source of inspiration for Soane. Measuring and drawing the building may have been another shared exercise by Soane with Thomas Hardwick (see 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, p.53). Hardwick's plan and elevation, 1778, is in the RIBA Drawings Collection (SB60/13).

Any drawings for the Temple of Vesta that Soane may have made in Italy were lost on his journey home to England in 1780. Quite soon after his return he copied some of George Dance's finished drawings (see SM 45/3/31, SM P286, SM P279 and SM 45/3/32) as well as details from other unidentified sources (see SM 45/3/33, SM 45/5/1, SM 45/5/2, SM 45/5/3 and SM 45/5/4). Soane's 'Miscellaneous Sketches 1780-2' (volume 40, ff. 83v-81v) has a plan, view and details probably taken from a further source. Other drawings of the Temple of Vesta were made by Soane's office for his Royal Academy lectures (see Concise Catalogue). See also M.Richardson, 'John Soane and the Temple of Vesta at Tivoli', Architectural History, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain, XLVI, 2003, pp.127-46.

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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).  


Contents of Italy: Tivoli: Temple of Vesta (or Temple of the Sibyl), 1778-80 and later (9)