Resource
Mackintosh’s Northern Italian Sketchbook
The Northern Italian Sketchbook website enabled visitors to explore Northern Italy through the eyes of the celebrated Scottish architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868-1928) during his sketching tour of the Continent in 1891. The tour was funded by The Greek Thomson travelling scholarship that Mackintosh was awarded while a student at Glasgow School of Art.
Users were able to browse a digitised copy of Mackintosh’s sketchbook, comprising mainly architectural drawings from the later part of his tour, alongside present-day photographs from the same locations. In addition, interactive 19th century Baedeker maps enabled users to follow Mackintosh’s journey, or explore his drawings through keywords and themes.
Details of each sketch alongside contemporary photographs of the buildings can be found on the VADS website.
The website’s database was compiled by George Rawson and David Buri. The research was carried out by George Rawson, Elaine Grogan and David Buri and was part-funded by Glasgow School of Art and the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
Unfortunately, support for Adobe Flash (software) ended in 2021, and it was blocked by most web browsers. As a result the Northern Italian Sketchbook website was decommissioned and a project to rebuild the site is under review.
However, you can find the catalogue record for The Italian Sketchbook, alongside images of all 81 pages of the volume in our Archive Catalogue.
