Eighteenth-Century Architectural Examinations at the Accademia di San Luca: New Evidence for the Concorsi Clementini

This article investigates a group of largely unpublished eighteenth-century drawings produced by top architecture students at the Accademia di San Luca in Rome. Now in the collection at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York, these drawings were executed during timed examinations (called prove) associated with the academy’s famous contests, the concorsi Clementini. By exploring the Cooper Hewitt sheets and related works still at the Accademia, this article uncovers the circumstances, requirements, and results of the timed examinations. It elucidates the challenges presented to the students and thereby reconstructs the fundamental expectations for architects-in-training at one of the most prestigious academies in Enlightenment Europe. It assembles critical new material for the history of architectural pedagogy during this period of transition from an apprenticeship model to a standardized form of classroom teaching.