Joseph Mallord William Turner Narni, with the Rocca d'Albornoz and an inscription to Pius VI 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 69 Verso:
Narni, with the Rocca d’Albornoz and an inscription to Pius VI 1819
D14788
Turner Bequest CLXXVII 69 a
Turner Bequest CLXXVII 69 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 110 x 186 mm
Inscribed by the artist in pencil ‘x | PIVS VI Pont M | anno MDCCLXX[...] | VIAM FLAMINIUM QUA I Narni | [..]’ bottom right
Inscribed by the artist in pencil ‘x | PIVS VI Pont M | anno MDCCLXX[...] | VIAM FLAMINIUM QUA I Narni | [..]’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
References
1909
A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.I, p.523, as ‘Between Narni and Civita Castellana’.
1984
Cecilia Powell, ‘Turner on Classic Ground: His Visits to Central and Southern Italy and Related Paintings and Drawings’, unpublished Ph.D thesis, Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London 1984, pp. 101, 469 note 143, 129 note 11.
1987
Cecilia Powell, Turner in the South: Rome, Naples, Florence, New Haven and London 1987, p.34.
2008
James Hamilton, Nicola Moorby, Christopher Baker and others, Turner e l’Italia, exhibition catalogue, Palazzo dei Diamanti, Ferrara 2008, pp.44, 90 note 29.
2009
James Hamilton, Nicola Moorby, Christopher Baker and others, Turner & Italy, exhibition catalogue, National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh 2009, pp.42, 150–1 note 29.
The town of Narni occupies the crest of a hill approximately seven miles south-west of Terni, and fifty miles north of Rome. As was often the case during Turner’s travels, his mode of travelling did not give him much opportunity to stop and explore the centre of the town. The carriage simply followed a predetermined course in an anti-clockwise direction from east to south-west around the walled perimeter. Consequently Turner’s sketches of Narni only relate to views or subjects visible from the road such as the edges of the town and the Bridge of Augustus in the gorge below.
The inverted sketch on this page depicts the western side of Narni, from a point near the Porta Romana. The tower visible in the centre is the Torre Campanaria, the campanile of the cathedral, whilst in the top right-hand corner is the thirteenth-century castle, the Rocca d’Albornoz. Amidst the hills in the background is the monastery of San Cassiano. The composition recalls James Hakewill’s drawing, The Town of Narni 1817 (British School at Rome Library), which Turner would almost certainly have seen during his work on Hakewill’s Picturesque Views in Italy in the months leading up to his own Italian tour.1 In the foreground on the right Turner has noted the location of a marble tablet which commemorates the building of the mountain road from Narni by Pope Pius VI in 1791. This monument stands on the side of the present-day Via Vittorio Emanuele, the road which leads back to the Via Flaminia and the route to Rome. Turner has transcribed the Latin text from the side of the plaque. A related sketch and inscription can be found on folio 60 (D14769).
Nicola Moorby
November 2008
How to cite
Nicola Moorby, ‘Narni, with the Rocca d’Albornoz and an inscription to Pius VI 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, November 2008, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www