Albums of Drawings

The album “Various artists” features studies of nudes and drapery dating from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and bound into a volume in the late nineteenth century at the behest of the Academy’s secretary, Cesare Fallani. The volume currently contains 24 leaves sheets, onto which 27 drawings have been glued.

Carlo Maratta, one of the artist on the album, was a painter, active mostly in Rome and he was elected academic in 1662. From 1664 to 1665 and from 1699 to 1713 he was Prince of the Accademia di San Luca and concerned with elevating the status of artists, promoted the study and drawing of the art of Classical Antiquity

Among the twenty-seven drawings preserved in the album there are several studies by Luigi Garzi and Carlo Cesio. Luigi Garzi was painter (1638-1721) and one of the main pupils of Andrea Sacchi. He was elected academic in 1670 and appointed prince of the Academy in 1682.

This sanguine, “Nude of a man”, is the "entrance gift” by Luigi Garzi to the Accademy. The inscription, at top right, confirms it: "Luigi Garzi. Nel regno del suo principato dono all'Accademia" (Luigi Garzi. In the realm of his pricipato gift to the Academy") 1682.

In the album are preserved three drawings by Carlo Cesio: they are studies of naked man performed in sanguine. Carlo Cesio was a painter and an engraver, and he was brought up at Rome, in the school of Pietro da Cortona who supported him in his election to the Academy of San Luca in 1651. He was appointed Prince of the Academy of St. Luke in the 1675.

The other album, "Sketches of various autorj" bound in the years 1870-1877, preserves some studies of figures, of saints and architectural sketch as well as drawings attributed to Federico Zuccari, Pomarancio, Francesco Vanni and others.

The sheets Woman lying naked with a book open and the Marriage of the Virgin were attributed to Federico Zuccari.
Federico Zuccari was a mannerist painter and architect. He was responsible for the symbolic "foundation" of the Academy in 1593, under a charter confirmed by Pope Sixtus V. He was the first Prince of the Academy.

The Marriage of the Virgin has been identified as a preparatory study for Federico Zuccari’s frescoes (1582-1583) on one wall of the chapel of the Dukes of Urbino at the Sanctuary of the Holy House of Loreto.

The album “Schizzi di varij autori” preserves, also, a series of sheets attributed to Cristoforo Roncalli called il Pomarancio as Madonna in glory with her right arm folded over her breast and Christ in glory with a scepter made with pen and brown ink on gray-blue paper.

There are few sheets with a signature, for example this Study of right arm unrolling a parchment, with the inscription at the bottom left "der Cavalier Pomarancio".

The album of drawings by Ferdinando Galli Bibiena was the gift of the Commendatore Stefano Galletti in the 1901. It contains 6 bound cards numbered on both sides I to XII and bound in non-consequential order and preserve freehand drawings of Ferdinando Galli Bibiena

Sheet “foglioIII” is the study of the exterior of a building with perspective made with ink and watercolor.

Bibbiena, in some sheets, draws architectural and decorative elements only or interiors and courtyards of buildings. Instead he studies, in this sheet, the perspective of an ancient monument and triumphal arch.