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

This page contains a study of the Fortezza Vecchia, or ‘old fortress’, in the port of Livorno, which Turner executed with the sketchbook turned horizontally. The fortress was built in the early sixteenth century during a period of Medici rule.1 It incorporated earlier medieval structures including the Mastio di Matilde, an eleventh-century keep shown here protruding above the ramparts, its corbels indicated as a row of lines.

Turner’s viewpoint for the present study is from a small dock known as the Vecchia Darsena, looking north. The view encompasses the Canaviglia bastion on the west side of the Fortezza Vecchia, one of its three bastions. Perched on the ramparts to the left is the Palazzo di Francesco. Moored boats appear to the right, and the distant tower to the left is presumably the Torre del Marzocco, a fifteenth-century watchtower. In the top-right corner is a separate detail of coastal topography.

Further studies of the Fortezza Vecchia, a site that evidently caught Turner’s attention, can be seen on folios 3 verso, 68 verso, 69 recto and verso, 70 recto, 72 recto, 81 verso, 82 recto and 87 recto (D21417, D21542–D21545, D21548, D21566–D21567, D21574).

Marking the first appearance of Livorno in the present sketchbook, this study is out of sequence with the overall itinerary it embodies (see the Introduction), which begins near Genoa and ends near Livorno and Florence. 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).