In 1772 the Accademia di San Luca organized a competition to design decorative buildings on the west and east side of the Piazza del Popolo, Rome. The axis of the piazza was north-south, from the Porta del Popolo (situated near the site of the old Roman Porta Flaminia) to the twin churches of Santa Maria dei Miracoli and Santa Maria in Montesanto, and the aim of the scheme was to balance this with buildings on the Pincio to the east and towards the Tiber to the west. Valadier worked on his design for decades; his initial plan of 1793 was abandoned with the threat of war and the susequent occupation by the French in 1798 meant further delays. In 1810 Valadier's plans were accepted by Napoleon, but the Commission des Embellissements established by the French to supervise all Roman decorative projects, rejected his scheme to create cascades, and either a French formal garden or a picturesque garden for the Pincio side. Valadier was replaced by the architect Alexandre-Jean-Baptiste-Guy de Gisors (1762-1835) and the landscape architect Louis-Marie Berthault (1771-1823?). Valadier's ideas for the project were incorporated into the finished plan, albeit in a simplified form. Work commenced in 1815 and was completed in 1831.The present drawing can be dated to about 1814 because, as with a study in the Thomas Ashby Collection in the Vatican, the design is partly based on the scheme of Gisors and Berthault of 1812 and 1813. The general layout recalls Roman prototypes, such as the Roman temple at Palestrina, and 16th Century designs like Bramante's Giardino della Pigna and Vignola's Palazzo Farnese at Caprarola