Label on front cover inscribed Italian Sketches / and Mem^a J Soane / 1779 (by G. Bailey, Soane Museum curator 1837-60) with 98 leaves of laid paper watermarked G, F and with (parts of) crown and garland, bound in vellum with flap and vellum tie (148 x 100). The sketchbook is of a type made in Italy. The medium is pen except where pencil is stated and all the drawings are freehand, that is, 'rough'. The leaves were numbered in the past as (pp.) 1-196

Soane used both ends of the note/sketchbook: pp. 3-57 as a travel journal; pp. 193-175 (sic) principally for Italian vocabulary.

'Italian Sketches and Mem^a' records Soane's departure from Rome on 22 December 1778 (p.3). He seems to have travelled with Frederick Hervey, Bishop of Derry to Naples and together they visited the supposed Villa of Lucullus near Terracina on 25 December (pp.5-10) arriving at Naples on 29 December (p.3). On that same day Soane was in Capua and Caserta (pp.11-14). On 1 January, he went to Pozzuoli (p.16), was in Linterno on 16 January (p.17) and went to Mount Vesuvius on 20 January. Pompeii was of particular interest and Soane was there on 22 January (pp.24-35). He went to Benevento, and again to Caserta on 2 March (pp.40-41). He was still in Naples on 4 March (p.43). (See 'Italian Sketches 1779' (SM volume 39) for entries from 12 to 24 March 1779). The next entry shows that he left Rome on 11 April, travelling via Marino, Velletri, Terracina, Fondi, Gaeta and Capua to Naples where he arrived on 15 April 1779 (pp.44-6). By 2 or 3 July, Soane had returned to Naples (from Sicily) (pp.47-50). On 4 July he visited Sorrento and the last entry in the journal part of his note/sketchbook is dated 5 July when he was presumably still in Naples.

The only specific references to travelling companions in this note/sketchbook are entries for 22 January 1779 (p.24) 'Pompeii Jan^ry 22. 1779 With Mr [Thomas] Pitt, Mr [R.R. Pennington & Sir W^m Molesworth'. And, 11 April 1779 (p.46) 'Expences to Vesuvius w^h [? John 'Warwick'] Smith'. Mention is made again of Thomas Pitt (p.56) and, for example, of John Patteson (pp.49, 53, 56), John Stuart/Stewart (pp.46, 53, 56) and [? Charles] Morris (p.54)