Italy through Irish eyes. Pages from Lord Berehaven’s book of Italian drawings

A book of drawings devoted to Italy in Cork’s university library is here assigned to Richard White (1800-1868), Viscount Berehaven and afterwards 2nd Earl of Bantry. A keen amateur draftsman with a sharp eye for scenic and architectural detail, the nobleman was also an indefatigable traveller, who visited the Italian peninsula in 1829, the year the album was very likely compiled. Some fifty-eight images appear on its pages, including rapid pencil sketches and more detailed drawings reworked with either pen-and-ink outlines or brush and brown wash. Landscape dominates the subject matter, but gardens are present too, alongside architecture and copies after specific works of art. The drawings document his destinations: Spoleto, Narni and Civita Castellana on the Flaminian Way, as well as Rome. Several of Pope Benedict XIV’s building projects in the Eternal City feature in the book, pointing to the Viscount’s curiosity about the pontiff’s role as a patron of architecture. Evidently Raphael’s Parnassus in the Stanza della Segnatura at the Vatican Palace caught White’s attention as well, for the album contains studies of figures from the Renaissance master’s celebrated fresco. When viewed collectively, then, the sketches reveal the plural interests of a little-studied Irish aristocrat travelling through Italy at the twilight of the Grand Tour.