While recently Alexander Hamilton was all the rage in Philadelphia, another Hamilton also made a huge impact in the city: Sir William Hamilton.

In 1772, the Library Company purchased an influential work that would further the nation’s taste in neoclassical design. The book was Pierre d’Hancarville’s  Collection of Etruscan, Greek, and Roman Antiquities from the Cabinet of Honble. Wm. Hamilton published in Naples from 1766 to 1767. It contained beautiful engravings printed in black on sepia ground and hand colored with vibrant oranges portraying urns and vases. A number of engravers and draughtsmen worked on the tome, including Giuseppe Bracci, Carmine Pignatari, Carlo Nolli, and Antoine Cardon. Colored plates were still a rare and expensive luxury, and the book made a big impact on Philadelphians.  It was so valued that the December 1772 Library Company’s Directors’ Minutes list it as one of the items that required the permission and signature of two Directors in order for it to be checked out of the Library.