Carlo Labruzzi Rome 1748 - 1817 Perugia

The Temple of Minerva Medica, Rome, is seen here from the west. Its ruined appearance evidently appealed to artists, who featured it both as the focal point in panoramic views as well as the main subject of the veduta itself (for examples of both see J. Garms, Vedute di Roma Dal Medioevo all'Ottocento, Naples 1995, vol. II, pp. 197-8, nos. D63 and D64, both reproduced).

Carlo Labruzzi, the younger brother of the painter Pietro, became a member of the Congregazione dei Virtuosi del Pantheon and of the Accademia di San Luca in Rome, the latter in 1796. Today Labruzzi is perhaps better known as a draftsman, and it was as such that he accompanied Sir Richard Colt Hoare on an expedition along the Via Appia Antica in the autumn of 1789, during which he executed 226 pen-and-wash drawings. Although Labruzzi did not complete the trip due to his ill health, Colt Hoare bound the drawings into five volumes (now in the collection of the British School in Rome) and Labruzzi kept a second, less finished, set from which he produced a series of engravings. Labruzzi is principally remembered as a gifted vedutista who recorded monuments of ancient Rome and scenes from the Roman campagna.