Fabio Rosa (1687-1753) under Benedictus XIV reached the position of computista dei Sacri Palazzi, i.e. accountant of the Pope. Rosa played also a role in the history of art: being son of the academic painter Francesco Rosa, he was highly esteemed for his painting collection. The collection was made of 510 pieces, some hung in via Paolina, some others in a  vigna close to Porta Salaria. Quite surprisingly, old masters played a minor role in the ensemble: in fact, most of the pictures were painted by modern masters. Rosa held pictures of history painters such as Carlo Maratti, Benedetto Luti and Francesco Trevisani; his true passion, anyway, lied on classical landscapes and particularly on those by Jan Frans van Bloemen, named Orizzonte. Fabio Rosa’s love for classical landscapes reflects Accademia di San Luca’s gradual appreciation of the ‘genre painting’ and of classical landscape itself, which took off in the second half on the XVIIth century and boosted in the first half of the XVIIIth. In fact, Rosa was connected to the Accademia: he was buried in the church of SS. Luca and Martina and left to the Accademia a wide anthology of his picture collection, selected by his friend Placido Costanzi. One might well suppose that his taste and acquisitions were influenced by some members of the Accademia, such as for instance the same Costanzi. Thanks to Fabio Rosa, the Accademia might be looked as Rome’s main museum for contemporary art, thus becoming the third centre of a ‘museum system’ formed also by the Musei Capitolini for antique pieces and the Pinacoteca Capitolina for old masters paintings. This system, probably conceived around 1750 by Silvio Valenti Gonzaga and Giovanni Paolo Panini, gave to the Accademia a key position in the art market. Its effectivness in shaping grand tourists’s taste might be revealed in Brownlow Cecil’s and Thomas Coke’s choices.

The Archive of the Accademia di San Luca in Rome is a well known address to all scholars and students interested in XVIII century architecture. Here, instead of describing what is possible to find, we point on the missing documents, that we group in three categories to whom we assign the following titles: reticence, deliberate omissions and loss. Under the category of reticence we have listed some contrasted elections to the academic body that have left no documents; under the category of deliberate omissions we present a unofficial story of some of the Concorsi Clementini. Finally, under the category of loss, we list all information available on the opinions requested to the Academy about current architectural enterprises in XVIII century Italy.

In the documents kept in the Historical Archive of the Accademia di San Luca, Antonio Canova is never mentioned until his official admission as a member of merit in 1800. He arrived in Rome in 1779. One of the justifications for this omission can be found in some debates which took place between the Venetian sculptor and some members of the Accademia di San Luca in occasion of the inauguration of the Ganganelli monument in 1787. One of the most ardent opponents was Andrea Bergondi, a less know artist today, who influenced the life of the Academy for many years. Bergondi was opposed in his ascent by some artists who made a formal civil case against the Academy and Bergondi, which was a sign of the search for innovation and for solutions to the profound resistance that survived in the Academic College. The reality of  the Accademia di San Luca in the second half of the 1700s is characterized by a rigid closure that makes the institution impermeable to every artistic innovation and contemporary theoretical debate which was concentrated instead in the private academies held by the artists, which were founded as alternative places and were effective in contrast to the inadequacy of the Historical Academy.

The Gallery of the Accademia di San Luca houses a painting representing Samson drinking from the Jawbone of an Ass, submitted by the roman painter Do-menico Pellegrini at the competition «Anonimo Mecenate» announced in 1819 by the Accademia di San Luca. The analysis of the painting allowed the identification of the personality of a painter so far unknown to the scholars, bearing the same name and younger than the celebrated Do-menico Pellegrini of Galliera Veneta, who bequeathed to the Academy a large number of paintings. The homonymy and the contiguity in time and place of their production generated in some cases contamination of data and works. The attempt to reconstruct the profile of the young Pellegrini has been also an opportunity to focus on some details concerning the homonym
Venetian painter.

This research aims at casting a new light on the involvement of Venetian connoisseur Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle in the heated cultural and political debate about the reform of the Academies of Fine Arts in the postunification national context. After an analysis on the genesis of such reform, the essay takes into account the emblematic case of the Accademia di San Luca in Rome, a stronghold of academic tradition that, despite a strenuous resistance, was eventually deprived of its centuries-long teaching activities. The documents and literature of the period identify Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle, an honorary member of the Giunta di Belle Arti, as the author of the reform, shaped with the purpose of testing in the Capital city an innovative, exemplary didactic model susceptible to be extended to all artistic institutions throughout the country.

The prolific activity of senese painter Domenico Beccafumi (1486-1551) as book illustrator is still not very well known. After the recent rediscoveries of three series of virgilian and ariostean woodcuts for the venetian typography, the small xylography made to celebrate the victory of the battle of Porta Camollia in Siena (1526) is a minor work in the eclectic career of this mannerist artist that allows us to discuss the complex political situation of the Tuscan city in the first part of 16th century and to reconnect this commitment in the framework of senese publishing industry and Beccafumi’s abundant production as an engraver.

In 1744 abbot Giovanni Marangoni (Vicenza 1672-1753) published Delle Cose gentilesche e profane
trasportate ad uso e adornamento delle chiese with the printers Niccolò e Marco Paglierini. The work addresses the theme of re-use of in ancient Roman churches, investigated both in doctrinaire and antiquarian aspects. This work was the first, and for a long time the only one entirely dedicated to such phenomena. This article focuses on the cultural context of the author and on the aspects of antiquarian interest in Cose gentilesche. The topic of re-use is addressed as catalog of various types of
spoliae. One of the most notable contributions by Marangoni is related to the motivations behind this
practice. His analysis focuses on the propagandistic and celebratory use of the phenomenon of re-use, with the materials of the great classical heritage exhibited in terms of Christians trophies over the defeated pagan religions. In this work Marangoni also provides much evidence on the contemporary practice of the destruction of antiquities; this evidence is a indicator of a melting pot of ideas and initiatives for their safeguard. He reports many contemporary chronicles that are a real indictment against gross negligence and malfeasance of the so-called «custodians» of the churches. They became in many cases responsible for the destruction of parts of the centuriesold art-historical fabric, in part this is the result of the restoration campaign of the oldest churches promoted by papal patronage during the first half of the Eighteenth Century. Nor were Marangoni himself and his friend and colleague Marcantonio Boldetti, owner of the office of Custodian of the Sacred Relics and Cemeteries, exempt from similar accusations concerning the management of the Christian catacombs.