Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.19667

    Stone-arch bridge, Narni, Italy

    Date
    mid 18th century
    Creator
    Gerard Vandergucht (1696 - 1776, British) , Engraver
    Object type
    Archive reference number
    Material
    Technique
    Subject
    Content object
    nature
       > landscape
    Description
    Landscape view depicting the ruins of the Bridge of Augustus near Narni, Italy, first built around 27 BC using marble blocks.

    Inscribed above: ‘Page 131’
    Below: ‘Ruins of the Marble Bridge of Augustus near Narni G Vander Gught Fecit’

    Plate from Edward Wright’s Some observations made on travelling through France, Italy &c (1st ed. 1730, 2nd ed. 1764) cut out and pasted into this volume of Designs by the late John Smeaton made on various occasions in the course of his employment as a Civil Engineer from the year 175[?] to 179[?], Volume 4. Containing Designs for Bridges and Buildings. Collected and arranged by John Farey, 1821.

    John Smeaton (1724-1792) was a British civil engineer, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1753.

    John Farey (1766-1826) was a British geologist and surveyor, he worked on the published reports of John Smeaton’s work between 1809 and 1812.
    Object history
    Smeaton’s Designs were received by bequest of Mr Edward Farey in November 1913 as indicated in the copies of outgoing correspondence bound in the New Letter Books of the Royal Society, NLB/49/185 and NLB/49/312.

    The collection was originally purchased after Smeaton’s death in 1795 by Sir Joseph Banks, President of the Royal Society and member of the Committee of the Smeaton Society of Civil Engineers. The committee undertook to publish a comprehensive selection of reports on the drawings which was entrusted to John Farey sr (1766-1826) and assisted by his better-known son John Farey jr (1791-1851) mechanical engineer and Fellow of the Royal Society. The work began in 1809 and resulted in three published volumes, Reports of the late John Smeaton FRS, made on various occasions of his employment as a civil engineer, London, 1812.
    Associated place
    <The World>
       > Europe
          > Italy
    <The World>
       > Europe
          > United Kingdom
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