Italian Architectural Drawings from the Cronstedt Collection in the Nationalmuseum

A splendid and substantial compendium of renaissance, baroque and mannerist architectural drawings, featuring new scholarship

This catalog presents the first comprehensive study of the Italian architectural drawings in the Cronstedt Collection in the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, discussing 181 drawings dating from c. 1570 to c. 1620. Among them are works by Francesco da Volterra, Carlo Maderno and other Roman architects, done for churches, chapels, palaces, gardens and fountains—many constituting primary and almost unknown sources for late Mannerist and early Baroque architecture. Also included is a large corpus of plans and architectural details by French draughtsmen that meticulously document ancient monuments, as well as buildings by the Renaissance masters Bramante, Antonio da Sangallo, Michelangelo and Vignola.

Italian Architectural Drawings proposes new attributions in the light of recent scholarship, based on close examination of the materiality of the drawings (paper, medium, technique, mounting). Comparative illustrations and a photographic catalog of the watermarks complete the volume.