J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

Although the treatment here is slighter than on folio 34 recto opposite (D14548; Turner Bequest CLXXVI 30), the two pages appear to form a panorama. The foreground is not presented in detail, making the exact viewpoint difficult to establish, especially in the light of subsequent development, but it appears to have been a little east of that adopted at the Montagnola Gardens for the recto (D14546), and more in alignment with the present Via Capo di Luca view on the perimeter of the old city walls at or near the Porta San Donato (see folio 30 recto; D14542; CLXXVI 26h), ranging south and south-west, judging by the alignment of the more carefully recorded towers and domes on the other page. At the top right here is a slight continuation or recapitulation of part of the main view.

The Turner scholar C.F. Bell bracketed the two pages and annotated Finberg’s 1909 Inventory entry (‘View of Bologna, with the Towers of Asinelli, &c.’) as a ‘Panorama from S. Michele in Bosco’,1 but the church and monastery complex he notes is on the south side of the city.

For Cecilia Powell’s general comments on Turner’s views of Bologna from a distance here and around the Sanctuary of the Madonna di San Luca (folios 32 verso–39 recto; D14545–D14558; Turner Bequest CLXXVI 28a–35), see under D14545;2 for general remarks on the city and numerous views on adjacent pages, see under folio 24 recto (D14532).