GIUSEPPI

BONOMI (1739-1808)  , English architect, was born at Rome on the 19th of January 1739 . After attaining a considerable reputation in Italy, he came in 1767 to England, and finally settled in practice there . He was the innocent cause of the retirement of Sir Joshua Reynolds from the presidency of the Royal Academy . Sir Joshua wished him to become a full Academician, regarding him as a fitting occupant of the then vacant chair of perspective . But the majority of the Academicians were opposed to this suggestion, and Bonomi was elected an associate only, and that merely by the president's casting vote . Bonomi was largely responsible for the revival of classical architecture in England . His most famous work was the Italian villa at Roseneath, Dumbartonshire, designed for the duke of Argyll . In 1804 he was appointed honorary architect to St Peter's at Rome . He died in London on the 9th of March 1808 . His son, GIUSEPPI BONOMI (1796-1878), studied art in London at the Royal Academy, and became a sculptor, but is best known as an illustrator of the leading Egyptological publications of his day . From 1824 to 1832 he was in Egypt, making drawings of the monuments in the company of Burton, Lane and Wilkinson . In 1833 he visited the mosque of Omar, returning with detailed drawings, and from 1842 to 1844 was again in Egypt,. attached to the Prussian government exploration expedition under Lepsius .

He assisted in the arrangement of the

Egyptian court at the Crystal Palace in 1853, and in 1861 was appointed curator of the Soane Museum . He died on the 3rd of March 1878 .