Recto: Front Elevation of a Roman Temple in Ruins (inspired by Giuliano da Sangallo); Verso: Elevation of the Nave of a Roman Basilica in Ruins (? the Basilica Giulia, inspired by Giuliano da Sangallo).

Recto: Front Elevation of a Roman Temple in Ruins (inspired by Giuliano da Sangallo); Verso: Elevation of the Nave of a Roman Basilica in Ruins (? the Basilica Giulia, inspired by Giuliano da Sangallo).

Sangallo family

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

A recent discovery, this sheet and seven others (acc. nos. 2008.105.1-8) comprised a manuscript draft for an Italian edition of the sole surviving architectural treatise of Roman antiquity, Ten Books on Architecture by Marcus Pollius Vitruvius (late first century B.C.). Had the project been completed, it would have ranked among the brilliantly imaginative works of Renaissance interpretive architectural theory. The drawings also exhibit a beautifully expressive handling of the pen. Comparisons of style as well as of the shorthand notation in the sketching of human figures suggest a close kinship with drawings by Bastiano "Aristotile" da Sangallo (Florence, 1481 – Florence 1551) and the collaborators that helped him draw and write the motifs of marginalia in a printed 1486 edition of Vitruvius (Biblioteca Corsiniana, Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Rome) that was reworked in the 1530s. By all accounts a virtuoso stage set designer, Bastiano da Sangallo-the cousin and closest collaborator of Antonio da Sangallo "The Younger" and Giovanni Battista da Sangallo "Il Gobbo"-was Michelangelo's assistant in the Sistine Chapel and took the surname of "Aristotile" for his love of antiquity. Members of the Sangallo family had been deeply interested in Vitruvius for at least two generations.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Recto: Front Elevation of a Roman Temple in Ruins (inspired by Giuliano da Sangallo); Verso: Elevation of the Nave of a Roman Basilica in Ruins (? the Basilica Giulia, inspired by Giuliano da Sangallo).Recto: Front Elevation of a Roman Temple in Ruins (inspired by Giuliano da Sangallo); Verso: Elevation of the Nave of a Roman Basilica in Ruins (? the Basilica Giulia, inspired by Giuliano da Sangallo).Recto: Front Elevation of a Roman Temple in Ruins (inspired by Giuliano da Sangallo); Verso: Elevation of the Nave of a Roman Basilica in Ruins (? the Basilica Giulia, inspired by Giuliano da Sangallo).Recto: Front Elevation of a Roman Temple in Ruins (inspired by Giuliano da Sangallo); Verso: Elevation of the Nave of a Roman Basilica in Ruins (? the Basilica Giulia, inspired by Giuliano da Sangallo).Recto: Front Elevation of a Roman Temple in Ruins (inspired by Giuliano da Sangallo); Verso: Elevation of the Nave of a Roman Basilica in Ruins (? the Basilica Giulia, inspired by Giuliano da Sangallo).

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.