1817. The Roman Academy occupies an extensive building,[19] and seems in general to be well regulated; there are four professors; of ornamental architecture; of perspective; of the theory of architecture; and of the practice; and I believe each professor gives a lesson or a lecture twice a week. Among the students, the first year is supposed to be employed in elementary architecture; the second in copying plans, elevations, sections, and other architectural drawings; and the four following in the theory and practice of architecture. As at Paris, a programma, or subject for design, is given out about once a month, which the students study at home, and bring their labours to the professor for his criticisms and corrections; and once a year a more elaborate production is required, and a silver medal given to each of those, who execute their task with care and ability. The standard work on the orders, in the Roman, and I believe, in all the academies of France and Italy, is that of Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola, which perhaps is hardly so good in that respect as the publication of Sir William Chambers; but there is no writer who has accomplished a greater revolution in architecture in Italy, than Milizia, and his influence is felt everywhere, though we hardly know his name in England. He has written his own life, and as it is very short, and very characteristic, I will give it to you. “Every body ought to write the history of his own life, in order to incite himself continually to mend it, and in order to furnish to posterity something of the present time which may be depended on. On this account, I who have written so many lives, now write a sketch of my own. I was born at Oria, a little town in the Terra di Otranto, in the kingdom of Naples, in 1725. I was the only son of the richest, and noblest family of the hamlet. At nine years old I was taken to Padua, where an uncle of mine, who had been driven from home by some youthful errors, exercised the profession of medicine. There I studied the belles lettres to very little purpose, and after seven years, ran away from Padua, on account of some reproofs received from my uncle, and wandered to Bobbio, near Piacenza, whence I wrote to my parents; and after going to Pavia and Milan, I came to Rome, where my father met me. He conducted me to Naples, and left me to continue my studies at that capital. I studied a little of logic and metaphysics under the celebrated Abate Genovese, and natural philosophy and geometry under Padre Orlandi, a Celestine monk. But I ran away also from Naples, prompted by a desire to see the world, and especially France, but was obliged to turn back again from Leghorn for want of money. I then returned home to Oria, where, after a long continuance of an idle and heedless life, I retired into a country house to study the sciences. At last, at the age of twenty-five,