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

Economically rendered, this architectural study apparently depicts the Fortezza Nuova, or ‘new fortress’, in Livorno. Turner’s viewpoint appears to be from across the waterway surrounding the fortress, facing north-east. From close range, he outlined the corner turret to the left, the sloping walls, the narrow windows reduced to dotted lines, and the arches of the bridge.

Constructed in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the Fortezza Nuova lies to the north-east of the city, in the Venezia Nuova district. The area was developed under successive Medici rulers as a network of canals and bridges to facilitate the transportation of goods to and from the port. These architectural features no doubt appealed to Turner, whose affinity for the area’s namesake Venice is widely known. The Fortezza Nuova was originally more extensive: the building sketched here by Turner underwent a process of partial deconstruction in the late seventeenth century, reducing its size by two thirds.1 It sustained further damage during the Second World War.

Further views of Venezia Nuova appear on folios 3 verso and 70 recto (D21417, D21545). For a general commentary on Turner’s visit to Livorno, together with a list of relevant works in the sketchbook, see under folio 68 verso (D21542). This subject is out of sequence with the overall itinerary embodied by this sketchbook (see the Introduction), which begins near Genoa and ends near Livorno and Florence.