Keywords

• When in Rome
• Percier and Fontaine made hundreds of drawings in order to document major and minor Renaissance architectures of the city: their work was to be later published in their famous book (Paris 1798). Why did they opt for the Renaissance? And was their choice personal? In order to find answers to those questions
• we present three set of evidence documenting an architectural interest in post-antique architecture
• at the end of the eighteenth century in Rome. 1. English Neo-Palladians who bought drawings of Palladio's work in Vicenza and Venice
• asked for similar drawings also in Rome: we discuss some examples from Lord Bute's collection of drawings
• 2. At the time when Bertotti Scamozzi published Palladio's oeuvre in Vicenza
• in Rome too some artists sought to exploit the general demand for books documenting Renaissance architecture (we discuss: G. Stern
• Piante elevazioni profili e spaccati degli edifici della villa suburbana di Giulio III [&hellip
• ]
• Roma 1784
• Nuovo metodo per apprendere insieme le teorie
• e le pratiche della scelta architettura
• Roma 1794)
• 3. In the same years that Percier and Fontaine were in Rome
• other young architects were there and some of them
• influenced by the then arbiter of architecture Francesco Milizia
• began to be interested in the architecture of Bramante and Raphael