In 1742 the young Bernardo Bellotto undertook his first solo journey as an independent artist. Initiating a recurrent pattern in his career as one of the eighteenth century's most accomplished view painters, Bellotto left his birthplace of Venice in search of new pictorial and professional challenges. This first trip took him to Rome, with short stops along the way in Florence and Lucca. He evidently stayed long enough in Rome (possibly up to six months) to study and draw most of the city's major landmarks.' On his return he used these studies to make a series of paintings which have gradually re-emerged from relative obscurity during the course of this century. Though any specific professional motive he may have had for the trip has remained elusive, it has generally been assumed - ever since Piero Guarienti stated as much in 1753 - that the twenty-two year old Bellotto was sent to Rome by his uncle and mentor Giovanni Antonio Canale, il Canaletto.2 Several drawings and smaller views of Rome suggest that Bellotto was indeed assessing the challenge of what was - for him - the unfamiliar topography and architecture of the Eternal City. The finished paintings he subsequently produced represent the first major artistic statement of his career as an independent vedutista, and are the first known examples of the grand and complex compositions for which he was later to become famous.

Quotations from earlier masters are abundant in Giovanni Battista Piranesi's early etched architectural fantasies. But although they have received some attention in Andrew Robison's catalogue raisonne of this portion of his oeuvre,' the importance of print-sources for understanding Piranesi's working methods has not been fully explored. Piranesi seems to have been particularly assimilative and dependent on earlier engravings when devising the figurative elements he incorporated into his etchings, and, as we shall see, he appears invariably to have copied from his sources directly onto his copperplates so that the motifs are reversed in his prints, adding to the somewhat unreal appearance of several of the subjects.

Among the holdings of the Fondo Lanciani at the Biblio-teca dell'Istituto di Archeologia e Storia dell'Arte in Rome are five large pen and wash designs incorporating Egyptian obelisks by the little-known Roman architect Giovanni Stern (1734-94) (Figs.39, 40, 41, 44 and 45).1 Dateable to the 1780s, they can be linked to the urbanistic activity of Pope Pius VI, whose enthusiasm for obelisks is well-attested. Although some of the drawings have been reproduced in general studies of Roman obelisks, the two most interesting remain unpublished and the others have been misidentified in terms of the monolith, the site, and even the artist concerned.2 These errors are understandable, since several projects involving obelisks were underway at sites throughout the city at the time, and it is, as we shall see, difficult to determine whether Stern's drawings reflect actual or speculative schemes.

In a eulogistic account of his friend Filippo Juvarra, Count Scipione Maffei recalls convivial meetings in Turin cafes at which the famous architect of the Savoy court - a man he described as 'di naturale allegro, di buona conversazione, e molto amico dei divertimenti' - willingly proffered demonstrations of his powers of design.

The baroque altar of St Francis Regis, now in the church of the Descalzas Reales, Madrid (Fig.63), has had an exceptionally disrupted history.' It was originally erected in the 1720s in the south transept of the Jesuit Iglesia del Noviciado,2 having been commissioned from several Roman artists by Guillaume Daubenton and financed with help from Philip V of Spain. When the church was demolished to make way for the new Universidad Central in the middle of the nineteenth century,3 the altar was dismantled and removed to the Convent of the Trinidad Calzada in the calle de Atocha.4 Shortly afterwards, in October 1862, the church of the Descalzas Reales in the centre of Madrid was destroyed by fire and reconstructed,5 and the altar of St Francis Regis was moved there to be re-erected in the new apse. The new location occasioned alterations to the altar's structure, original elements being replaced by ones more appropriate to the context of the church: for example, the lateral canvases by Miguel Angel Houasse with scenes from the life of St Francis Regis were replaced by stucco reliefs of Fran- ciscan and Dominican Saints by Jose Riccardo Bellver, and the Jesuit monogram (see Fig.66), originally placed in the gable, was also removed, being evidently considered unsuitable for a female Mendicant church; it was replaced by a relief of the Assumption of the Virgin also by Jose Riccardo Bellver.7 Another victim of the reorganisation was the reclining figure of St Francis Regis by Agostino Cornacchini, which had been located under the altar's mensa (see Fig.64).8 It was left to gather dust for several years in the convent of the Descalzas Reales before being returned to the Jesuit Casa Profesa in the calle de la Flor Baja at the beginning of this century - but was destroyed there by fire during the tumult of 1931.9

Like other Roman churches, the Basilica of S. Maria Maggiore houses many works of art not easily accessible. Among them, hanging above the chimney-piece of the chapter house in the Palazzo dei Canonici, is an imposing eighteenth-century canvas of S. Carlo Borromeo which retains its original black and gold frame (Fig. 72). Despite its impressive size (275 by 192 cm.) it has attracted little attention in the literature, having been published only as an unattributed image of the saint.' When it was restored in 1989 an inscription, now covered by relining, was found on the back, which allows its history and authorship to be established: 'DIVO CAROLO / S[ACRAE] R[OMANAE] E[CCLESIAE] CARDINALI / PARTRIARCHALIS LIBERIANAE ARCHIPRESBYTERO / ET MEDIOLANENSI ARCHIEPISCOPO / HIERONYMUS ARCHIEPISCOPUS RAVENNAE / NONSATIS DONAT / ANNO MDCCXL'. With this information in hand, it is clear that a record in the register of sacristy expenses for March 1740 of the purchase of cord to hang the 'great painting of S. Carlo given by Monsignor Crispo' (who, as we shall see styled himself Archbishop of Ravenna), refers to this picture;2 while the 1743 inventory of paintings in the sacristy supplies the name of the painter: 'Un quadro grande rappresentante San Carlo Borromeo, con altre figure moribonde per la peste: opera del Muratori con cornicefilettata d'oro donato da Monsignor Crispi'.3