A facade of a church

An etching by the Count de Caylus reproducing a pen and ink washed drawing now in the Albertina, Vienna (inv. no. AZRom808a), where it is catalogued as a study for the facade of St Peter's Basilica in the Vatican City by Baldassarre Peruzzi. Annotated one the verso. Trimmed within the platemark.

This print is lettered with title, followed by production detail: 'D'après le dessein de Raphaël d'Urbin, qui est dans le Cabinet de Mr. Crozat / gravé par Mr. le Comte de C...'; numbered at the lower right "48". This print was part of the "Recueil d'estampes d'après les plus beaux tableaux et d'après les plus beaux desseins qui sont en France" (also known as 'Recueil Crozat'), a series of plates commissioned by Crozat, with 140 plates published in 1729 and a second volume in 1740.

The drawing was previously in the collection of Pierre Crozat ("Description sommaire des dessins des grands maistres d'Italie..", sale catalogue of Crozat's collection written by Pierre-Jean Mariette, p. 131, Nr. 48).

According to Passavant and Ruland (1876), this drawing is a project for the facade of the Basilica di San Lorenzo, Florence by Raphael. The Basilica has a complicated building development, with an important phase under the direction of Filippo Brunelleschi from 1419. After this campaign, the facade of the Basilica was not finished and after his visit to Florence in 1515, Pope Leo X asked leading architects to submit designs for the completion of the Basilica. If the history of Michelangelo's acquisition of the commission for the facade is clear, the circumstances preceding this are cloudy and however the work remained unbuilt. Also the role of Raphael is not too certain: it appears that both Michelangelo and Raphael were called from Rome to Florence. Scholars are inclined to believe that if there was a project by Raphael for the Basilica di San Lorenzo, this is now lost, but Manfredo Tafuri published a drawing which he proposed as a copy of the original Raphaelesque plan (see Bibliographic References).