JAMES GANDON'S earliest known design for the Four Courts in Dublin is recorded on a signed drawing in the King's Inns Library. It is inscribed 'Elevation of The New Courts approved by His Grace The Duke of Rutland 1785'. The drawing shows that by 1785 the evolution of the present composition was complete. Details remained to be altered: the portico had yet to be set back close to the facade, and - if the shadows are to be believed - the final three bays at either end remained to be pulled forward, proud of the arcaded screens. But the main ideas are all there. The Duke of Rutland, having approved of this design in terms which were, according to Gandon, 'quite too flattering for me to repeat', would have immediately recognised the building had he lived to see its completion in 1802.

WILLIAM BECKFORD'S collection, renowned for its size, range and quality, included some exceptional silver and silver-mounted objects. But though some of his antique pieces have received attention1 the remarkable contemporary plate he commissioned throughout his long life has gone virtually unnoticed. References in the extensive correspondence between Beckford and his friend and agent Gregorio Franchi reveal the immense scale of patronage and the close interest he took in such commis- sions: 'Advise Fiume (Edmund Rundell), or rather Mr Storr, not to let the candelabra languish too long - four extra are badly needed now that the other eight are all in a row'. This impression is confirmed by contemporary descriptions of Beckford's gothic fantasy, Fonthill Abbey, and of the interiors of Lansdown Tower and Lansdown Crescent, Bath, to which he moved in 1822.

'… PAR votre note du 6 (March 1784) vous me marquez que la manuf a besoin de gravures en sujets d'histoire pour continuer les pièces du Service du Roi; il est bien fâcheux que l'on soit oblige de recourir a des moyens aussi imparfaits que celui la pour les peintures de la porcelaine; néanmoins je sens qu'il est difficile de faire autrement'. And so the comte d'Angiviller reluctantly gave Antoine Regnier, the Director of the factory, permission to purchase engravings to serve as models for the scenes on the service which had been specially commissioned by Louis XVI for his personal use at Versailles.

ANDREA DELLA ROBBIA'S terracotta altar-piece in Militello, Sicily, was recently shown by Gino Corti to have been a commission from the Count of Militello, anatonio Piero Barrese and to date from the year 1487. The work, from Andrea's shop, has the Nativity as its subject, Filippo di Matteo Strozzi's mercantile and banking firm acted as Barrese's agent for the piece, and it was from the records of the Strozzi now preserved in the Florentine State Archives that Corti published the new information. The documents published below shed additional light on some aspects of the complex transactions involved in shipping the relief from Florence to Sicily than do those already published and they reveal fascinating details of the way in which the Strozzi firm made a handsome profit from handling the commission for Barrese and at the same time hid this from him. 

IN 1486 was had erupted on the northern frontier of the dukedom of Milan and the Swiss invaded southwards, ravaging the district around Domodossola. The end of their adventure came on 28th April 1487 when the Milanese forces met and destroyed them at the bridge at Crevola. Domodossola, Crevola and Mattarella were points of great strategic importance and throughout the 1480s and 1490s the Milanese were anxious to keep them safe. This was the reason for Bramante's visits to them in 1493.

IN a manuscript entitles Il Libro di Possesioni di Messer Palla e di messier Francesco Strozzi in the Archivio di Stato, Florence, are three hitherto unknown references to Gentile da Fabriano dated 1420, 1421 and 1422.1 Each entry is a posting for rent paid by Gentile da Fabriano to Messer Palla di Palla Strozzi for a house in the popolo of S. Maria Ughi, an old priory church located (until its destruction in 1785) next to the former Strozzi palace. Palla's Book of Possessions refers mainly to income brought from farms, houses and shops owned by Palla di Palla Strozzi (the son of Palla di Francesco Strozzi, fi.1370s), nicknamed II Novello (c.1368-1455-56). 

VOLLON's still-life Curiosites, included in the exhibition L'Art en France sous le Second Empire in 1978-1979, was commissioned by the State on 2nd January 1868 and exhibited at the Salon which opened that year on 1st May. It shows, in the words of the exhibition catalogue 'objects in carefully studied disarray... very much in the spirit of the times', but it is possible to interpret the picture more precisely, for the objects shown were then in the collection of the comte de Nieuwerkerke and are now at Hertford House in the Wallace Collection.