In 1900, after successfully passing the Royal Institute of British Architects’ examinations, and winning the R.I.B.A. Tite Prize for the design of a freestanding clock tower, Percy Nobbs traveled for several months in Europe. Together with two friends and colleagues—Ramesay Traquair (1874-1952) and Cecil E. (Scott) Burgess (1870-1971)— he traveled to northern Italy visiting Milan, Verona, Venice, Ravenna, and Florence. John Ruskin’s The Stones of Venice (1851-53) and G.E. Street’s Brick and Marble Architecture of the Middle Ages: Notes of a Tour in the North of Italy (1855), stimulated interest in North Italian Gothic Architecture and in the use of architectural colour. Watercolour sketches of Italian marble and mosaic work from this trip helped him to win a second major prize for a scheme for the mosaic decoration of a church. In February 1901, Nobbs presented a paper about the Italian trip, which was published one month later as “Why Go We to Italy?” in The Builders Journal and Architectural Record.