Mylne, Robert
- Dictionary and Archive of Travellers
- Title
- Mylne, Robert
- Full Text of Entry
-
(1733 - 1811), architect, 1st s. of Thomas Mylne of Edinburgh; Master Mason 1754; surv. St Paul's Cathedral 1766 - ; FRS 1767; surv. New River Company 1767 - , and Canterbury Cathedral 1767 - ; member of Society of Civil Engineers 1771 - ; clerk of works Greenwich Hospital 1775 - 82; founder member Architects Club 1791.
1755 - 9 [dep. Edinburgh Sep. 1754; Marseilles, Jan. 1755] Civitavecchia (Jan. 1755), Rome (Jan. - ?), Naples (May - mid-Jun. 1756), Rome (Jun. 1756), Naples (26 Feb. 1757), Sicily (late Feb. - Jun. 1757), Rome (by 11 Feb. - Dec. 1758), Siena, Florence, Pisa and Leghorn (Jan. 1759), Rome (Jan. - 6 Apr.), Narni, Terni, Foligno, Perugia, Cortona, Arezzo, Florence, Bologna, Venice (May - 1 Jun.), Padua, Vicenza, Verona, Lake Garda, Brescia (10 Jun.) [London Jul.]
Mylne's experiences in Italy contrast with those of his contemporary Robert Adam. He had an annual allowance from his father of £30, where Adam spent £800 - 900 each year, and whereas Adam's social position enabled him to obtain honorary membership of Italian academies, Mylne's equivalent memberships came as a direct result of his unprecedented victory in the 1758 Concorso Clementino at the Accademia di S. Luca. His experience is principally described in a series of letters he wrote from Italy (Mylne letters MSS).
Mylne joined his brother William in Paris in October 1754. During 1754 William, who had been studying at Blondel's Ecole des Arts, had suggested that Robert should join him and that they should proceed together to Rome. They left Paris on 5 December, and much of this journey was accomplished on foot. On 3 January 1755 they announced their intention of taking the next boat for Civitavecchia and, although there is no further letter until September, it can be assumed that they reached Rome in January as planned, taking up residence at 3 Via Condotti.1 The brothers were together in Italy until about July 1757, when William set out for home.
In Rome Robert began by studying existing buildings rather than making designs. He also drew after statues and from the life, presumably at the Accademia del Nudo.2 In September 1755 Robert wrote that the technical aspects of architecture were best studied under the direction of an Italian master, but it is not known whether he followed this precept. At some point, however, Mylne met Piranesi, since he was called a 'scholar of Piranesi' in 1759, and a letter from Piranesi to Mylne in London of 11 November 1760 speaks of their mutual and eternal friendship.3
For most of 1756, with the exception of a six-week 'jaunt' to Naples to see remains of antique architecture and Vesuvius,4 Mylne lived at Rome and continued to work in much the same manner, additionally reporting that he was making clay models of ornaments. At this time his companions were James Nevay and a Mr Adams. This can hardly have been Robert Adam, however, who was described damningly by Mylne in February 1756 as making no more impression as an architect than the Mylnes themselves.5 Other acquaintances were Andrew Lumisden, George Hay, a brother of Lord Somerville, and a son of John Scott. A hiatus occurs in Mylne's letters between January 1757 and January 1758, but William Mylne's correspondence shows that Robert visited Tivoli, Anzio and Nettuno in the autumn.
Between February and June 1757 Mylne visited Sicily with the draughtsman Matthew Nulty and Richard Phelps. A passport for Mylne to Messina and Malta was dated Naples 26 February.6 Phelps was intent on publishing a book on the antique remains of the island7 and Mylne hoped to use his work on this book to fill in the gap between his arrival in London and the launching of his career. In about August 1757 Mylne began preparing designs for the First Class Premium in Architecture of the 1758 Concorso Clementino at the Accademia di S.Luca.8 It is said that in 1757 Richard Brompton drew Mylne's profile portrait (engraved at Paris by Vangeliste in 1783), but see Brompton.
Mylne spent 1758 entirely at Rome, living with James Maxwell in the Via Condotti, following the departure of William the previous summer. His circle of acquaintance grew among British artists and he also met George Lucy9 and Lord Brudenell. He began to take travelling amateurs as pupils and taught the principles of architecture to Lord Garlies, whom he had met through Dr James Irwin. Through Nathaniel Dance, Mylne was introduced to an unnamed Dresden merchant, from whom he received his first commission for a house design. The Abb? Grant recommended Mylne as an instructor to William Fermor, for whom Mylne was to build Tusmore in 1766, the only commission received in Italy which he was destined to execute.(10)
On 6 September 1758 Mylne submitted his designs for the Concorso Clementino (the preliminary studies are now in the RIBA, the finished drawing is in the Accademia), and the following day took the prova examination (drawing now in the Cooper-Hewitt Museum). On 9 September Mylne was elected the victor. He immediately contemplated entering the first concorso of the newly-founded Parma academy, writing for the subject on 12 September.(11) Subsequent events in Rome presumably dissuaded him from the necessity of competing again. On 18 September, in front of the Pretender, Mylne received his silver medal in a ceremony of music and oration.(12) It was the first time that a Briton had carried off a medal in the Roman concorsi. Mylne was taken up by Prince Altieri, through whose offices the Pope was petitioned for the permission necessary for a Protestant to be admitted as honorary academician at S.Luca. Mylne was elected Accademico di Merito on 14 January 1759 and took his seat on 4 February, the membership fee, ceremonial toga and black silk cloak costing £14 and necessitating a plea to his father for an additional allowance of £40.
New acquaintances in late 1758 and early 1759 included Edward Dering, Lord Archibald Hamilton and Adam Ferguson, and a Mr Knight and a Mr Miller became new pupils. Mylne was asked to produce illustrations for a book on the medicinal properties of the Roman baths which Dr Irwin intended to write13 (but by February Irwin had died). He was also asked for sketches for two houses: Broughton for James Murray, a commission procured through Murray's brother-in-law Lord Garlies, and Mersham Hatch in Kent for Sir Wyndham Knatchbull-Wyndham.
Mylne's last months in Italy between January and June 1759 were thus ones of triumph. He made a fifteen-day excursion to Tuscany in January, during which he met Robert Surtees, and he left Rome for good on 6 April,14 travelling with Ferguson and thus without expense. At Florence he was offered membership of the Accademia del Disegno, and elected like Adam as a dilettante and not as an artist (as had been the case with Chambers in 1753).15 Mylne's name is also recorded as honorary member of the Accademia Clementina at Bologna,16 though by the date of that election he had reached Brescia and already spent a fortnight at Venice, a city which he found insignificant for an architect. Travelling now with Louis Devisme, Mylne visited several of Palladio's buildings during June, taking no more than general notes of their situations. By the third week of July, Mylne had reached London having passed through Switzerland, Germany and Holland.
1. AVR sa, S.Lorenzo in Lucina, 1756 - 9. 2. See MacDonald 1989, 86. 3. HMC Charlemont, 1:252 (J. Parker, 20 Feb. 1759). Piranesi letter; RIBA, myr/1/1. 4. See M. McCarthy in J. Serra ed., Paestum and the Doric Revival 1750 - 1830, [1986], 47. 5. See also C. Gotch, Architectural Review, Feb. 1956. Fleming, Adam, 188, 211 - 12, 272, 295 - 6, 356 - 7, 374,
378. 6. RIBA, Add. ms Mylne, 4/10. 7. D. Wiebenson, Sources for Greek Revival Architecture, 124 - 5. 8. See ANSL 51, ff.101r, 123r - 128v. 9. Lucy of Charlecote MSS, l6, 1401 (Mylne, 27 Sep. 1758). 10. Lille, archives du nord, 18 H 63 (W. Fermor to Dom Walker, 7 Feb. 1782). 11. Accademia di Belle Arte, Parma, Archivio Cartella 2, f.75. 12. See R.S. Mylne, Numismatic Chronicle, 4th ser., 4[1904]:180 - 3, pl.11. 13. Cf. Jas.Murray to Wm.Chambers, 7 Mar. 1759 (letter in priv. coll.1966). 14. Note by F. Razzetti. 15. See Salmon 1990, 204 - 5 and nn.50 - 54. 16. Accademia di Belle Arti, Bologna, Archivio Clementina Atti, 1, 237, and Catalogo de Signori Accademici d'Onore, 14 Jun. 1759.
F. S.