Domenico Gnoli is a young Italian in his mid-twenties—a brilliant artist whose first exhibitions were held when he was eighteen. His work has been shown in many cities... Brussels, London, Rome, New York, San Francisco. He has done a number of designs for theatrical productions—among others the Old Vic's production of As You Like It in 1955, and John Buttler's Chamber Ballets at Spoleto's Festival of Two Worlds in 1958. His drawings of Rome, shown in these pages, were accompanied by the following notes:

Here are four of my 'Roman' drawings—I say Roman, not of Rome or about Rome, because, just like me, they are Roman by nature, not by vocation. Four Rowan drawings then, done with care, with pedantic precision—a sort of inventory of the elements of the Rome in which I grew, possibly more a Rome I remember than a Rome I know. An inventory of umbrellas, chairs, crates, the tables of the sidewalk cafes, fish and vegetables stocked in the shady intimacy of small markets, the solemn and dark laundries—everything, in short, that moves on the cobblestones of the narrow, unpredictable streets of the old Rome. And the smells, the noise, and then at last the night... the empty wine shops—the 'osterie' as we call them— with the odds-and-ends remaining from some informal gathering, some ready to close with the chairs on the tables so the floor can be swept, only one table still set with the chairs around it, for the tired waiters' dinners... and then the noise ceases, but the voices go on—the exclamative, mocking wise voices of the Romans. The wise voices of a wise city, these are—of skeptical, calm citizens removed from all urgency, removed quite often from these drawings too, so that the settings of their tranquil lives may speak for themselves...