Search

This essay introduces the four volumes of the contemporary Voyage pittoresque, establishing their multiple relations with the work of the same name, published by the Abbé Saint-Non in 1781-1786 and the extraordinary graphic repertoire produced by the artists sent by the Abbé to the Kingdom of Naples and Sicily. The first part of this essay focuses on the protagonists of the eighteenth century expedition and on the character of their activity in the light of recent graphic and documentary discoveries. The second part of the essay analyses each contemporary volume as an integral part of the larger work, directly connected to the 2015 conference dedicated to the critical overview of the sites of Southern Italy featured in the Voyage of Saint-Non. The first two volumes of the present publication are made up of a collective series of essays that develop the conclusions of the conference, regarding, respectively, the sections dedicated to the separate geographic regions and the final round table discussions. The following two volumes, of monographic character, are dedicated to Calabria. The region, which thanks to the iconography fixed by the artists of Saint-Non appeared for the first time in the European Grand Tour imaginary. The third volume offers a chronological examination of the region before and after Saint-Non’s publication, while the fourth volume systematically analyse the context of the sites which were represented by Saint-Non’s artists.

The new identification of two drawings by Filippo Juvarra as views of the Tejo River, en pendant with another view drawing of the river already identified, enriches the number and quality of the scarse graphic documentation of Juvarra’s activity during the time that he served John V of Portugal, in Lisbon, from January to June of 1719, when the architect was finalizing the project for the royal palace and adjoining patriarcal church. Complementing that view drawing already identified of the northern bank of the Tejo River facing eastwards, with, in the background, the city of Lisbon, and, in the foreground, the monumental celebratory royal light-house/column (ideally placed in front of the area of Alcântara), the other two view drawings show the semi-rural coast of the river, facing westwards, with various realistic and idealistic new architectural elements, including a church on a hill with a tall cupola and two bell-towers flanking a pronaos with a triangular pediment. The correspondence between this church, and that depicted in the surviving drawings for the royal palace and patriarcal church, offers the occasion for a new reconstruction of the preliminary phases of the royal project, strongly conditioned by the choice of an alternative site to that of the old royal palace at Terreiro do Paço. At the same time, the comparative analysis of the three views offers a priviliged perception of Juvarra’s creative processes, always focused on determining through the tools of drawing, the form and the dimensions of new developments in rapport to the architectural and landscape context.