ABSTRACT
Luigi Antonio Melchiorre Balugani was born in Bologna on 14 January 1737. Luigi began drawing at an early age and apparently with much promise, producing ornamental designs and developing a strong desire to study architecture. He begged his father to find him a good master and was apprenticed to Giuseppe Civoli, the Bolognese painter and professor of architecture at the Accademia Clementina, the Bolognese academy of art. Balugani left Rome on 9 February 1765, sailing from Leghorn to Algiers, where he arrived on 20 March. After joining Bruce he seems to have kept up a regular correspondence with his old patron, Marchese Ranuzzi, with Count Casali as secretary of the Accademia Clementina, and with a wide circle of friends and acquaintances. Surviving letters provide the main evidence for his life with Bruce. All the drawings made by Balugani and Bruce were brought back to Europe by Bruce. They were seen by a number of people in Bologna.
