La collezione dei disegni romani di James Gibbs: spazialità e temporalità dell'antico nelle rappresentazioni di alcuni artisti del settecento

“The Album, A Collection of Drawings of Roman Bridges, And of Ornaments in Perspective, of Temples, Houses, Monuments, Chimney Peeres, Shields”, by James Gibbs, conserved in the Ashmolean Museum archive in Oxford, contains many illustrations of classical vestiges in the urban landscape, along with “caprices” inspired by the relationship between ruins, nature and myth. Precise surveys of classical building complexes and evocative landscapes of ruins, including drawings by Carlo Marchionni and Alessio de Marchis, and plates attributed to Carlo Fontana and Carlo Maratta, along with many pictures by Gibbs, offer meaningfuldocumentation of the spread through Europe of a new perception of antiquity, both as a testimony of the past and as an aspect of rising interest in the urban landscape.