Adam's Point of View

Adam's Point of View We do not see a city only with our eyes. We also see a city through the way that others have looked at it, through the images and books they have left. The books preserve the memory of the city and pass on its forms. Each book represents a point of view but some inaugurate a vision that remains in time. The book of Robert Adam, "Ruins of the Palace of The Emperor Diocletian" (London, 1764), has this inaugural character. It fits in with archaeological publications dedicated to the Grand Tour but is distinguished by its greater effort in the interpretation of the building. This paper focuses on the key role of the drawings in ensuring additional importance for Adam’s book as well as on their singularities in neoclassical research. The corpus of pictures consists of 61 plates and reflects a knowledge of many masters of architecture, such as Palladio, Desgodetz and Piranesi. But through the outstanding work of Clérisseau the drawings play a more important role. They fix the architectural themes of the building (such as the relationship between the building and the landscape given in#Plate VII, View of the CryptoPorticus Towards the Harbour) and establish a point of view on the Split ruins that will become “classico”. These drawings combine to make Diocletian's Palace a secret presence in many architectural works and build the myth of Split. Adam’s point of view returns in the pictures of the books, of Cassas, Hébrard, Niemann and in many photographs of the Palace as those of N. Gattin.