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

This page contains four distinct landscape sketches depicting three separate locations variously related to Turner’s journey between Rome and Florence. The two studies in the bottom left-hand corner both depict Arezzo, a town in Tuscany approximately fifty miles south-east of Florence. The first scene is identifiable only from the artist’s inscription, but the second represents the Gothic Cathedral of San Donatus from the north.1 The building which Turner saw lacked the present-day campanile and main façade added in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries respectively.2 A comparable drawing was made by Turner’s friend and colleague James Hakewill in 1816.3 For further views in Arezzo see folio 29 verso (D16540).

The sketch in the top left-hand corner has previously also been identified as Arezzo, although the written inscription would suggest it in fact depicts the town of Assisi, approximately forty-five miles south-east of Arezzo. Finally the composition parallel with the right-hand edge of the page depicts the Umbrian town of Spoleto, with the Ponte delle Torri (Bridge of Towers) spanning the valley below the fortress of Rocca Albornoziana.4 Turner had already passed through Spoleto during the outward journey to Rome via Ancona but revisited it en route between Rome and Florence (via Foligno and Perugia). Further views can be found in the Ancona to Rome sketchbook (see Tate D14729–D14730; Turner Bequest CLXXVII 39a–40).