This volume, initially conceived as an edition of the acts of the International Conference on Vincenzo Pacetti held in Rome in November 2013 - an important event that followed the full publication of Pacetti’ s Giornali two years before -, was subsequently expanded to include further studies and contributions on the topic. It was thus necessary to divide the volume into four sections regarding the themes related both to the figure of Pacetti - for whom the definition of sculptor today appears too reductive - and to the artistic reality of Rome at the height of the Grand Tour in the second half of the eighteenth century. The first section is therefore dedicated to Pacetti and the contemporary artistic milieu, in which he moved with ease and skill, navigating events and changes; the second examines the relations and links that existed between the sculptor and the Antique, to reconstruct a series of cross references that formed the basis of his career and success. There follows a section related to Pacetti and drawing considered both on the level of his collecting of works in this medium (following his acquisition of the collection of Bartolomeo Cavaceppi) and on that of the artist’ s own execution of various sheets, now found in various European museums. The volume concludes with an examination of the relationships the sculptor maintained with international late eighteenth-century collectors who often visited his studio in Rome: from those of the Papal court to others from the nearby Kingdom of Naples, to the many English and Swedish clients, and the young Spanish artist-pensionados of the Madrid Academy of Fine Arts. Foremost among Pacetti’s Russian clients was Richard Sutherland, official banker to Empress Catherine II, who purchased a number of statues from Pacetti for the courtly residences of Saint Petersburg. What emerges is a wide-ranging and multi-faceted picture that has involved diverse specialists in ancient and early modern art, archaeologists who are also experts in collecting, and art historians, each of whom has responded to an aspect of the polyhedral and versatile personality of Vincenzo Pacetti to better illuminate our understanding of this complex period at the end of the Enlightenment century.
