Joseph Bonomi the Elder

Joseph Bonomi the Elder ARA (19 January 1739 – 9 March 1808) was an Italian architect and draughtsman who spent most of his career in England where he became a successful designer of country houses.

The next year he produced a design for a proposed sacristy for St Peter's in Rome, which may indicate that he visited his native city at around this time.

He took his wife and children with him, and the move seems to have been intended to be permanent; however the next year the family returned to London, where Bonomi was to remain based for the rest of his life.

In a paper read at the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1869, Wyatt Papworth summarised Bonomi's approach: The style adopted by him was the Italian or modernised Roman; and he sought to obtain the characteristic effect appropriate to the object of his design, rather by just proportions and good details than by unnecessary ornamentation and littleness of parts, thus exhibiting his preference for the "Architecturesque" over the "Picturesque.

"[2] He took a bold approach to Classical architecture, and was prepared to break its accepted rules by, for instance, omitting the frieze from an entablature, or supporting a portico on an odd number of columns.