Harrison, Thomas
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- Harrison, Thomas
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(1744 - 1829), architect, s. of a joiner of Richmond, Yorks; County Surveyor of Ches. 1815 - 29.
1769 - 76 Rome
Harrison was sent to Italy to study by Sir Thomas Dundas of Aske.1 Dundas initially decided to send George Cuitt, son of a builder working on his house, having been impressed by the young man's painting, but on hearing that Cuitt proposed to share his travel allowance with his friend Harrison, Dundas doubled the amount in order to support them both. Their route to Rome is not known, but they were lodged in the Strada Laurina in 1770 and in 1775 the two were still together with a 'Mr Pidry'[?] in lodgings facing the Piazza di Spagna.2
Most of the evidence for Harrison's activities in Italy exists in the form of a large number of drawings preserved in Chester CRO. They present certain difficulties, however, as most of them duplicate images which Harrison could have found in previously published sources, especially Palladio's Quattro Libri, but notes on the back of some suggest that they were either made, or at least referred to, in situ. It is thus clear that by July 1769 Harrison was examining the famous temples of the Republican, Imperial and Boarium fora. In the spring of 1771 he evidently met the Bishop of Derry at Rome,3 and at some stage, possibly as early as 1770, Harrison prepared drawings for converting the Vatican Cortile Belvedere into the museum of antiquities which the new Pope, Clement XIV, was contemplating. The scheme was described by Francesco Milizia in 1773: Harrison had proposed to close in the court with a colonnade all the way around supporting a cupola with a light source in the manner of the Pantheon. The drawings and a wood model were shown to the Pope, but rejected as too 'chimerical'.4 The museum (Museo Clementino) was eventually to be built to the designs of Michelangelo Simonetti.
Harrison's acquaintance with Clement XIV, however, was to lead to a series of dramatic events in 1773 when he entered the second Concorso Balestra of the Accademia di S.Luca.5 The subject was to systematise the Piazza del Popolo; designs were submitted on 20 April 1773, and the prova examination (for which the subject was chosen by James Byres) was the following day. On 22 April the victor was declared to be Domenico Lucchi and the runner up Saverio Marini, both pupils of Roman architects. Harrison, feeling the decision was not impartial, immediately approached the Pope asking that his drawings might be displayed to the public alongside the those of the prize winners, a request which the Pope granted. On 2 May the academicians decided to send the Pope a memorandum concerning their award, but opinion was firmly behind Harrison, and at an audience held on 11 May he presented a second document to the Pope, 'throwing himself at his feet' and asking that the Pope might compel the professors of S.Luca to elect him Accademico di Merito. Remarkably, the Pope acceded to this request,6 and on 6 June Harrison was elected. Harrison was required to attend the following congregation, but he neither attended on 11 July nor on the occasion of any other congregation during his time at Rome. Harrison was not asked for the donation of a piece of work, nor were his concorso drawings retained by the academy (the elevations and sections are now in Chester CRO). The events were described in the city's news bulletin of 19 June, including the fact that the Pope had presented the architect with two medals, one in silver and the other in gold (Chester CRO).7 According to Harrison's first biographer, writing in 1863 apparently with information from the architect's daughter, the Pope subsequently commissioned his young prot?g? to make a design (which was not used) for the new sacristy he proposed to build for St Peter's basilica.8
Harrison visited Pola in Istria9 and he was presumably the Thomas Harrison who arrived in Venice on 12 September 1776.(10) He had returned to England by the end of the year.
1. Farington Diary (20 Dec. 1795). See Blomfield, The Builder, 21 Mar. 1863, 203 - 5; M. Ockrim (Ph.D thesis, Lond.1988). 2. AVR sa, S.Maria del Popolo, 1770; S.Lorenzo in Lucina, 1775 - 6. 3. Childe-Pemberton, 2:402. 4. F. Milizia, Lettere al Conte Francesco di Sangiovanni, 42. 5. See ANSL 53, ff.6r, 33v, 36r, 37ff. 6. ANSL 180, Carta 20. 7. Diario Ordinario, 19 Jun. 1773. 8. Blomfield (at n1), 204. 9. Cf. R. C. Hoare, Recollections Abroad 1788-90, 122. 10. DBA. ASV is 760.
F. S.