The drawing shows an elevation of Vicenza’s Palazzo della Ragione – a building type common to Medieval Northern Italian communes including assembly halls, tribunals and a market space below. Known to most as the Basilica Palladiana, the Palazzo della Ragione in Vicenza is amongst the most important examples of Italian High Renaissance architecture. The building dates to the middle of the 1400s but its most notable feature is the encircling, two-storey Istrian stone loggia designed by Andrea Palladio (1508-1580). Commissioned from the young architect after the collapse of an existing loggia, the project began in 1546 and was completed in 1614.

This drawing shows the elevation of the Basilica Palladiana facing Piazza dei Signori. It is an idealized depiction, probably based on an engraving included in Palladio’s I Quattro Libri dell’Architettura (The Four books on Architecture). The elevation is composed of three levels: two superimposed porticoes and a high attic at the top. The ground floor portico consists of an order of engaged Doric columns flanked by serlianas – a structure composed of an arch with two lower rectangular openings on the sides. This level is surmounted by a Doric entablature which runs across the entire façade. The first floor portico is a replica of the lower order with engaged Ionic columns on pedestals in place of the Doric order. This level is topped by an Ionic entablature surmounted by balustrades and pedestals. The third level consists of an attic which is set back by one structural bay from the perimeter of the building. The attic is surmounted by an inverted ship’s-hull roof.

The drawing belongs to a set of 66 measured drawings of Italian Renaissance and Ancient Roman architecture which the V&A purchased from Edwin Parsons in 1886. The Parsons set may belong to a larger series of over 700 architectural drawings scattered in English and international collections formerly owned by the British Consul at Venice, Joseph Smith (1682-1770). A proponent of Palladian architecture, Smith began collecting measured drawings of classical and Renaissance architecture from the early 1740s. Today, most of this material exists in a series of bound volumes at the Royal Collection (where the Admiranda Artis Architecturae Varia is kept) and at the British Library (which holds the three-volume Admiranda Urbis Venetae), as well as in loose sheets scattered in collections across Europe and North America including the Royal Institute of British Architects and the Canadian Centre for Architecture.

The author of these drawings is unknown. However, their style and subject matter suggests the involvement of the Venetian architect, painter, engraver and theorist Antonio Visentini (1688-1782). A member of the Venetian Academy since its foundation in 1755, Visentini was affiliated with Smith and executed a vast number of architectural drawings for the British Consul as well as for a broader British collector base. Most of these drawings are scaled in English feet and consist of simplified plans and elevations of exemplary Italian architecture. Often produced as a series, the drawings were purchased by British Gentlemen to be included in their libraries and collections. The present drawing forms part of this material. The drawing is not signed by Visentini, but may have been produced by one of Visentini’s workshop members or pupils or by an unknown draughtsman working in the style of Visentini.