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

The Turner scholar C.F. Bell correctly annotated Finberg’s 1909 Inventory entry (‘Castle on rock, with “Quarry,” &c.’): ‘Trento’.1 At the top, the city is seen from the north, likely from the elevated corner of a brief dog-leg along the Via della Pontara from which a similar view remains attainable. The prospect, continued a little way to the left on folio 36 verso (D31668) opposite, is framed by the cylindrical Torre d’Augusto of the medieval Castello del Buonconsiglio on the left, and the slender spire-like roof of the Torre Verde on the right. There are hints of other towers and spires in the general direction of the cathedral, to the south-south-east, with the mountains flanking the Adige (Etsch) Valley beyond.

The central sketch appears to show the narrow turret at the corner of the Palazzo Pretorio on the near side of the cathedral’s shallow dome, with the castellated Torre Civica to the right (compare the view in the opposite direction on folio 77 recto; D31746), against the backdrop of mountains to the west across the Adige (Etsch) Valley. The viewpoint was presumably in the vicinity of the Piazza delle Erbe, as suggested by Turner’s note ‘Fruit Market’ below a similar study on folio 39 verso (D31674), which is shown as a more open area on old maps than the small space now hemmed in by later buildings which preclude this prospect.

The last drawing, inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, is carried right across the opposite page. In the present half, Castel Firmiano (Schloss Sigmundskron) is shown from the south, on its crag above the Adige (Etsch) Valley, roughly thirty miles past Trento; the view continues north-east up the valley of the Isarco (Eisack), towards Bolzano and the Dolomites in the other part. Among numerous others of the castle and its surroundings, compare the similar main view on folio 45 recto (D31685); for an overview, see under folio 1 verso (D31598).

Turner had presumably passed through Trento, now the capital of the eponymous province (also often known as ‘Trentino’, and part of the Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol region), on his way south to Verona from Innsbruck on the outward leg of this tour. However, there is only one small identified landscape (Tate D31551; Turner Bequest CCCXI 69), apparently labelled to indicate Bolzano, between sketches of those cities in the Vienna up to Venice sketchbook. 1833 was the only tour to include Trento, and Turner paused now as he returned from Venice (as reflected in his own title for this sketchbook), having approached from the east via the mountainous Valsugana section of the Brenta Valley. As well as making a few drawings in and around the centre, he used the heights to the north to survey the setting of the ancient city (originally the Roman ‘Tridentum’), picturesquely arrayed in a broad valley among dramatic peaks at a point between various rugged ranges of the Alps, with the Fiemme and Brenta Dolomites to the east and west, the Brescia and Venetian Prealps flanking the Adige to the south, and the Nonsberg group to the north.

Under Austrian governance in Turner’s time, Trento was customarily referred to as ‘Trient’ in German, and anglicised as ‘Trent’, notably in relation to the Council of Trent, the long-running if intermittent sixteenth-century Counter-Reformation gathering of the Catholic Church for which it is most notable historically. The city has since expanded considerably along the east bank of the river and up the slopes where Turner stood. The Adige was straightened considerably later in the nineteenth century; by comparison with old maps, its former course as shown by Turner is marked by a semi-circular sequence of roads north of the centre including the Via Torre Vanga, Via Torre Verde and Via Francesco Petrarca. The first two are named after towers which still stand and appear in some of the views here, and the other major buildings the artist recorded have been preserved.

The verso, folios 38 recto and verso and 78 recto (D31670–D31672, D31748) show elevated prospects from further north than in the first sketch on this page, and folios 40 verso and 41 recto (D31676–D31677) are from east of its viewpoint. D31672 also includes a study of part of the Castello del Buonconsiglio, and folio 39 recto (D31673) shows more of the complex from another angle. Views from around the cathedral have been mentioned above; folio 76 verso (D31745) shows the approach to the nearby Torre Vanga, which is seen again, guarding the old wooden bridge outside the city walls, on folios 41 verso and 42 recto (D31678–D31679), perhaps in response to a recent engraved view by Turner’s rival Clarkson Stanfield. The distribution of the sketches in two distinct parts of this book is characteristic of its somewhat haphazard overall sequence, as discussed in the Introduction.