It mainly holds late eighteenth century and above all nineteenth century materials, which are divided into two distinct categories:
The first
- Large acquisitions of drawings from private collectors (art amateurs and artists themselves) with the exclusion of the Acqua collection of ancient drawings acquired in 1857 and passed on to the Pinacoteca at the beginning of the twentieth century
- The entre corpus incisorio of Raffaello Morghen from the Giuseppe Bossi collection
- The album of the Ala Ponzoni donation, namely the Sanquirico collection of watercolour prints and eighteenth century engravings.
- Architectural drawings relating to the projects of the Napoleonic period and the tests of private institution exams (ca 1860-1890)
- Architectural and ornament drawings of the Grandi Concorsi (Competitive Exams)
- Engraving tests of first class competitions, also on display for approximately fifty years. The most famous drawings in this collection belong to fratelli Galliari, Giacomo Quarenghi, Andrea Appiani, Giuseppe Bossi, Francesco Hayez; the celebratory and urban solution projects of the Napoleonic years (Barberi, Bargigli and other anonymous works), the projects of the Vittadini competitions; and the graphic works for the Grandi Concorsi. Only the part concerning the School of Architecture has been cataloged.
The second
- Drawings and prints belonging to the so-called “educational furnishings” (the worksheets), that is the example of teaching, programmatically acquired according to original requirements
- Drawings and to a small extent, engravings, produced by the school or in its direct sphere for approximately fifty years, namely the drawings from the Second Class’ competitions, by the Pensionato artistico romano (later reused as models), covering the Napoleonic period up to the Unification.
- The remaining engraving materials and drawings can be described as teaching related materials: the school of element and illustration, the school of Nude Art, of Ornament, the Room of Statues, the school of Landscape, Litography and Composition