Civita Vecchia (1854)
The harbour town of Civitavecchia lies 80kms northwest of Rome. This sketch is the earliest of Samuel Butler’s completed drawings in the Library collection, and was made during his second visit to Italy, between August 1853 and January 1854, when the entire Butler family travelled through Switzerland to Rome and Naples.
Butler was allowed to miss half a year of school to join this cultural excursion, and at Naples the family engaged a tutor to enable him to continue his studies in Italian.