A RECENT publication from the Vatican commemorates and documents the latest restoration of Raphael's Transfiguration, which lasted from 1972 to 1976. The main purpose of the book is to publish a magnificent series of photographs of details in colour and in actual size. The are also some macrophotographs and X-ray prints. The principal thesis of the text is that the restoration has justified Vasari by showing that the picture is virtually entirely of Raphael's own execution. In support of this contention Fabrizio Mancinelli reiterates the argument which he had already published, and which was included in the documentary section of the exhibition, held after completion of the restoration, in front of the picture. This is to the effect that the restoration has revealed areas of paint which are thought to be unfinished, and this is interpreted as evidence of Raphael's responsibility for the execution of the whole, on the argument that if Giulio Romano and/or Penni had been called in to finish what Raphael had left unfinished they would not have left these passages in this state.

THE project for the decoration in mosaic of the Cappella del Coro in Saint Peter's has been the subject of two informative and complementary studies by Frank di Federico and Stella Rudolph which appeared recently. The purpose of the present note is to enlarge on the circumstances of the choice - certainly unexpected - of the Bolognese master, Maracantonio Franceschini, for the major role in this undertaking. Franceschini prepared cartoons, employed for the decoration in mosaic of the cupola and for four of the six lunette spaces of the chapel. Since neither article made note of related preparatory drawings for Franceschini's cartoons, I may indicate here that two drawings for the scene in the cupola are preserved in the collection of the Accademia Linguistica di Belle Arti, Genoa.

THE known life of Giovanni Battista Lusieri falls almost precisely into two halves. He is thought to have been born in Rome in about 1755, and from 1781, the year of his first known dated drawing, until 1799, he was working in Italy and Sicily. His earliest works are of Rome and the campagna. In about 1785 he moved to Naples and by 1799 had become court painter to that kingdom, working particularly on the antiquities of Sicily. During these years, the first half of his active life, little is known about him personally, but it was during this period that almost all his surviving work was produced.

IN 1588, Isaac Oliver painted a miniature of a fifty-nine-year old Dutchman with the inscription Sonder erch Verhouve (a mistake for 'Vertouwe'): 'To trust without suspicion' (in modern Dutch, Vertouwen zonder erg). The sitter, for long described as 'an unknown man', is now identified as an important figure: Colonel Diederik Sonoy (1529-97), of an ancient family from the Duchy of Cleves.

WENCESLAUS Hollar etched his famous Long View of London in Antwerp, where it was published in 1647. It is a composed work of art, assembling its parts in an assured visual rhythm which plays one side of the river off against the other. St Paul's, the Bankside theatres, Winchester House in the foreground and the spires of the city beyond, all settle into a harmonious grouping which continues to the right with the bridge, St Olave's, the Tower and the meanders of the river toward Greenwich. 

INVENTORIES of art collections of past centuries are always of interest. By examination of them we become acquainted with the culture of an epoch, the changes of taste, the preference given to some artists or forms of art over others. Two are presented here, both related to members of outstanding patrician families of Florence, the Gondi and the Pucci. Their particular point of interest - beyond the other aspects common to all art collection inventories - lies in the fact that art collections were set up even by minor branches of noble families, the possession of art objects being sought after - apart from other considerations - as a suitable way to show the prestige of lineage and to fulfil the social claims of one's rank.

ROSALIND Savill's article in November 1980 issue of THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE identifies many objects represented in Vollon's painting Les Curiosities, now in the Wallace Collection and formerly belonging to the comte de Nieuwerkerke, Superintendent of Fine Arts during the Second Empire, whose collection was purchased by Sir Richard Wallace in 1871. However, in stating that Nieuwerkerke's 'name has not been previously associated with the painting' the author overlooks an obscure, though highly significant, source - a brief monograph on Vollon by his friend and pupil Etienne Martin, publishes in 1923, twenty-three years after the artist's death.