The Allure of Rome: Maarten Van Heemskerck Draws the City

A journey through the Eternal City through virtuoso drawings.

In 1532, the Dutch painter Maarten van Heemskerck (1498-1574) traveled from Haarlem to Rome. Pencil in hand, he discovered antiquity and the Renaissance. His remarkable drawings take us on a journey through time in sixteenth-century Rome.

Van Heemskerck was everywhere, from the Colosseum to the Forum Romanum to the Piazza del Campidoglio. He was one of the first artists from north of the Alps to embark on a trip to Rome purely for the sake of art. His sketches reveal his admiration for the buildings and artworks of antiquity and the contemporary art of Raphael and Michelangelo. This magnificent volume invites the reader to discover van Heemkerck’s drawing technique, Roman topography, and the social network of the sixteenth century as well as the fascinating story of the restoration of his Roman sketchbook.

Tatjana Bartsch is deputy head of the photographic collection of the Bibliotheca Hertziana--Max-Planck-Institute for Art History in Rome. Christien Melzer is curator of Dutch and English art before 1800 at the Kupferstichkabinett der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin.