Page "Charles Robert Cockerell" Paragraph 3

Thanks to the abdication of Napoleon in April 1814, the Kingdom of Sicily and Rome were now open to the British, So on 15 January 1815 Cockerell left for Naples in the company of Jakob Linckh, they visited Pompeii and only reached Rome on 28 July.

The circle he mixed with in Rome included: Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, Antonio Canova, Bertel Thorvaldsen, Peter von Cornelius, Friedrich Wilhelm Schadow, Heinrich Maria von Hess, Ludwig Vogel, Johannes Riepenhausen, Franz Riepenhausen and the Knoering brothers.

Writing to his father in August 1815 he said ' I should be out of my wits at the attention paid me here, I have an audience daily of savants, artists & amateurs who come and see my drawings ; envoys and ambassadors beg to know when it will be convenient for me to show them some sketches ; Prince Poniatowski and Prince Saxe-Gotha beg to be permitted to see them ...'.

Much of his time in Rome was spent on preparing his drawings for publication.

Writing to his father on 28 December saying he had purchased copies of Domenico Fontana's Della transportatione dell ' obelisco Vaticano e delle fabriche di Sisto V and Martino Ferraboschi's Architettura della basilica di S. Pietro in Vaticano.

In 1816 Cockrell moved on to Florence.

Cockerell was presented to Ferdinand III, Grand Duke of Tuscany and was awarded the diploma of Academician of the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno.

While in Florence in early 1816 Cockerell produced a design for Wellington Palace for Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, it would have been in the style of Greek Revival architecture on a scale to rival Blenheim Palace, though in the end nothing came of the proposal.

In June he suffered another bout of ill health.

From Florence Cockerell continued his tour visiting Pisa for a month, returning to Florence, he set out on 13 September for Bologna, Ferrara, then travelling by boat along the Po to Venice where he stayed three weeks.

From Venice, Cockerell visited Andrea Palladio's buildings along the Brenta ( river ) and at Vicenza, passing on to Mantua and the Palazzo del Te, Parma, Milan, Genoa and back to Rome from where he set off in March 1817 to return home via Paris.