Other Frescoes
Other Frescoes
The Ceiling of Raphael's Villa
c.1853-1876Albumen print | RCIN 854034
A photograph of a coloured drawing by Giuseppe Manocchi in the Royal Library, Windsor Castle (RCIN 911032) of the ceiling of Raphael's Villa, the so-called Casino Raffaello.
Manocchi was an Italian draughtsman who is known to have worked in the London office of the architects Robert and James Adam in the late 1760s and early 1770s. The Royal Collection holds a group of c.30 ornamental ceiling and grotesque drawings by him; a much larger body of work, of similar subjects though dated earlier than those here, is held at Sir John Soane's Museum.
Raphael's villa - a small summer-house, also known as the Casino Olgiati, which stood in the Galoppatoio area of the present-day Borghese Park - was destroyed in the siege of Rome in 1849 and Ruland notes that: "the three principal frescoes have been removed before"; these are now in the Galleria Borghese. In the life of Raphael written by Quatremere de Quincy and translated into Italian by Francesco Longhena in 1829, it is noted that in the villa there was a portrait of La Fornarina, the fresco of the Marriage of Alexander and Roxana, representations of the Vices with arrows and the Sacrifice of Flora on the ceiling. He also writes that seven prints after the paintings of this Villa were made by Francesco Saverio Gonzales, five of which are in the Royal Collection (see RCINs 854035.a-d and 854037).
Manocchi was an Italian draughtsman who is known to have worked in the London office of the architects Robert and James Adam in the late 1760s and early 1770s. The Royal Collection holds a group of c.30 ornamental ceiling and grotesque drawings by him; a much larger body of work, of similar subjects though dated earlier than those here, is held at Sir John Soane's Museum.
Raphael's villa - a small summer-house, also known as the Casino Olgiati, which stood in the Galoppatoio area of the present-day Borghese Park - was destroyed in the siege of Rome in 1849 and Ruland notes that: "the three principal frescoes have been removed before"; these are now in the Galleria Borghese. In the life of Raphael written by Quatremere de Quincy and translated into Italian by Francesco Longhena in 1829, it is noted that in the villa there was a portrait of La Fornarina, the fresco of the Marriage of Alexander and Roxana, representations of the Vices with arrows and the Sacrifice of Flora on the ceiling. He also writes that seven prints after the paintings of this Villa were made by Francesco Saverio Gonzales, five of which are in the Royal Collection (see RCINs 854035.a-d and 854037).
- Acquired for the Prince Consort's Raphael Collection (c.1853-76)
