Charles Cockerell

This British architect liked to travel light—sketchbook in hand, not a committee of clients. In 1812 he hauled himself up a Sicilian hillside just to trace the jagged edges of the half-ruined Temple of Segesta, its Doric columns still standing after 2,300 years. Why? Because he believed a drawing could carry the whole story of a place better than a lecture hall full of plans. Hunt his 1813 sheet in the British Museum’s “Rome to Ruin” drawer; the ink lines do the talking.