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

As identified by the Turner scholars Cecilia Powell and Roland Courtot, the dominant subject of this page is the Palazzo Farnese and its surrounding gardens.1 Also known as Villa Caprarola, it lies to the north of Caprarola in the Viterbo province, overlooking the town from an elevated hilltop position.2 Commissioned in the 1520s by Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, later Pope Paul III, the pentagonal foundations were designed by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger and Baldassare Peruzzi, and initially conceived as a defensive fortress. By the 1570s, the architect Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola had transformed this fortified structure into a Renaissance villa, as well as developing the surrounding gardens.3 Turner was already familiar with the architectural legacy of Vignola, whose designs featured in his lectures as Professor of Perspective at the Royal Academy.4

Turner was evidently taken with the Palazzo Farnese; as Powell concluded, ‘it is very easy to imagine his interest in the many and varied perspective effects which the building offers.’5 The palace and its gardens feature in a dozen works in the sketchbook: see also folios 4 recto, 5 recto and verso, 6 verso–7 verso, 43 verso, 45 verso and 46 verso (D41121, D21771, D21773–D21774, D21776–D21778, D21841, D21845, D21847, D41122). Powell also remarked on Turner’s interest in the palace’s design and execution; he produced a plan on its distinctive pentagonal shape in the inside back cover of the present sketchbook (D41122), ‘a very rare occurrence on either of his Italian tours’.6

Turner approached Caprarola from the north-west, and the lower view depicts the Palazzo Farnese from the approach. Turner’s vantage point appears to be from the present-day Via San Rocco, looking east to depict the building in its dramatic surroundings, with trees and steep ramparts to the left. The distant summit to the right is Monte Soratte, a mountain range south-east of Caprarola and north of Rome. This is also the subject of the slight topographical study to the left, which Turner executed with the sketchbook turned vertically. For further commentary on Monte Soratte and a list of relevant views in the sketchbook, see under folio 27 verso (D21815).

In the upper-right corner is a rapid outline of the Casina del Piacere, a small summer palace in the Renaissance gardens of the Palazzo Farnese.7 Built in the sixteenth century, it served as a hunting lodge and pleasure palace, forming part of a larger complex of grottos, terraces, sculptures and fountains designed by Vignola.8 Here, Turner’s oblique view of the building is from the west, detailing its three large arched windows and the line of trees leading away.