Design for the tomb of Pope Clement XI Albani with allegories of Strength and Religion flanking a sarcophagus

This drawing is a project for an unexecuted monument to Pope Clement XI Albani (1700-1721). Although this design was drawn 22 years after the death of the Pope, Bracci's connections with Clement's two nephews, the Cardinals Alessandro and Annibale Albani, are documented as early as 1734. In that year Bracci restored an antique sculpture for Cardinal Alessandro (E. Kieven and J. Pinto, Pietro Bracci and Eighteenth-Century Rome, University Park, 2001, p. 273) and in 1741 Cardinal Annibale became godfather to his son. Further, in 1742, the year before the present drawing was executed, Bracci restored an antique sculpture of Apollo for Alessandro (E. Kieven and J. Pinto, op. cit., pp. 81 and 275). Other than the present drawing only one other commission for the Albani is known: a Design for a book cover or a ceiling with the Albani arms in the Canadian Center for Architecture, Montreal (E. Kieven and J. Pinto, op. cit., no. 82).
Pietro Bracci reused the present drawing for his monument to James III that he proposed to erect in Saint Peter's in Rome in 1766. A design for that tomb kept in the Canadian Center for Architecture shows James III standing in a bay flanked by Corinthian columns below a cornice over the very same allegories as in the present drawing (E. Kieven and J. Pinto, op. cit., no. 53). The ground plan of the present drawing corresponds to an alternative project for the monument for James III kept in the same museum (E. Kieven and J. Pinto, op. cit., no. 52).