In 1954, Nicholson visited Italy to see his retrospective at the Venice Biennale. He subsequently travelled to Milan and Rome, where he stayed with his niece Jenny Nicholson. In October of the following year, Nicholson travelled to Italy again with his collector friend Cyril Reddihough. They went to Rome directly, staying with Jenny Nicholson once again, and subsequently going on to visit Sienna, Pienza, Chiusure, St Quirico d’Orcia, Spello, Spoleto and Assisi. Nicholson had a strong affinity with classical antiquity and he held Italy’s architectural heritage in high esteem. This drawing depicts the west façade of the double basilica at Assisi dedicated to St Francis. Never reverential in his depiction of anything, however, the church is viewed from a side street and is framed by small houses; a bracket bearing telephone cables, bolted to one of the houses on the left, has been included in the work, and the wires creep outwards to the left and right. Nicholson’s style of line drawing, using hard continuous lines of unvarying sharpness, affords equal emphasis to each application of the pencil. In Assisi, the elementary outlines of the great mendicant church are just as integral to the overall design as the telephone lines. The paper which Nicholson used was always prepared in the studio before making a trip. Individual pieces would be washed with areas of watercolour, without any regard for what might later be depicted on the sheet. A great many sheets, washed in different ways and in different colours, were then carried around in a satchel. Once a subject or a view was decided upon, Nicholson then cast about in the satchel to find a piece of paper that suited the immediate needs of his drawing. This well-practised method ensured a certain richness of quality and often resulted in unexpected, enlivening contrasts between the subtle watercolour wash and the line drawing which followed it.