Large Collection of Documents Related to Francesco Sabatini’s Estate

More than 100 handwritten, some partly printed documents. Written in ink by different hands. Housed in a contemporary folder with a title vignette. Interesting collection of more than one hundred documents related to Francesco Sabatini’s estate (among them paintings by Goya and Tiepolo) and savings in Venice banks of more than 2 million reais. Francesco Sabatini (1721–1797) was an Italian architect, born in Palermo and studied at the Accademia di San Luca in Rome, under Ferdinando Fuga and Luigi Vanvitelli under whose orders he worked in Naples and with whose daughter, Cecilia he later married. Sabatini settled in Madrid in the 1760s, developed his professional career in Spain in the service of Carlos III and Carlos IV as a royal engineer, and became decorated with various prestigious civil and military titles. His most emblematic works are the conclusion of the Royal Palace of Madrid, the Royal Customs House (Real Casa de la Aduana), the Godoy Palace (Palacio del Marqués de Grimaldi), the Royal Basilica of Saint Francis the Great (Real Basílica de San Francisco el Grande), the Puerta del Real Jardín Botánico, the Puerta de Alcalá in Madrid, and the Convento de San Pascual in Aranjuez. Throughout his life, Sabatini accumulated a large amount of wealth, and lived in a large house, with a private chapel, well furnished and decorated with paintings by Francisco Goya, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Mariano Salvador Maella, Giacomo Nani, Bayeu, and Anton Raphael Mengs among others, in his testament the paintings had an estimated value of 35,518 reais. (Ruiz Hernando 1993) Sabatini also owned a large library with more than 600 books in it (Galland-Seguela 2005) with a wide range of topics from architecture, engineering, and mathematics through philosophy, literature, and history to medicine, art, and travel, estimated to be worth 36,043 reais. (Ruiz Hernando 1993; Ruiz Hernando 2020) His furniture was appraised at 9,114, the cars 10,900, the watches 14,300, the marbles 3,990, other ornaments 4,457, bronzes 35,555, paintings 35,518, instruments 8,500; silver 35,589, and diamonds 48,817 reais. (Ruiz Hernando 1993) Besides the realty and personal assets, Sabatini had considerable investments and savings in banks in Vienna, Paris, Genoa, Naples, and Madrid, but the majority was placed in Venice banks, with a total amount reaching more than 2 million reais (Galland-Seguela 2005; Ruiz Hernando 1993). Sabatini had two daughters to who he left his inheritance, for which a royal license was required and achieved in 1792. The three-fifths was granted to the older daughter, Ana María, wife of Jerónimo de la Grúa y Talamanca, Minister Plenipotentiary of Spain in the courts of Genoa, Stockholm, and later in Parma, while the rest to the younger, María Teresa, who married to Antonio de Zayas y Potau, 2nd Marquis of Zayas. The widow was granted a decent annuity, with which she wasn’t satisfied, and filed a lawsuit against the testimony and her daughters. (Ruiz Hernando 1993) The present archive was owned by Francisco Sabatini’s son-in-law, Jerónimo de la Grúa y Talamanca, and it is concerned with his wife, Sabatini’s older daughter, Ana María’s inheritance. It consists of: - 30 proofs of deposit from Venice banks (Zecca and others), issued to Francesco Sabatini, dated between 1774 and 1796. The documents are partly printed and partly handwritten, 8 of them are on vellum. Those issued between 1790 and 1796 are countersigned by Pedro Rombenchi, the Spanish consul to Venice, and bear his embossed seal. - 3 manuscript accounts currents of Sabatini’s invoices issued in 1795(?), 1796, and one posthumous in 1802, and one of de la Grúa’s (1803), and related notes on smaller papers. - A group of 56 letters: Jerónimo de la Grúa’s extensive correspondence with his attorney in Madrid, Joseph Badan, dated between 1801 and 1804. 27 letters from Badan and 29 from de la Grúa of which 15 are placed into Badan’s original letter as a copy of the reply. - A group of 12 le. …