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

As identified by the Turner scholars Cecilia Powell and Roland Courtot, the upper half of this page is dominated by the Palazzo Farnese.1 This Renaissance palace lies to the north of Caprarola, overlooking the town from an elevated hilltop position.2 Turner depicted this subject in a dozen works in the sketchbook; see under folio 4 verso (D21772) for an extended commentary and a list of relevant works.

Turner’s viewpoint for this sketch was facing north-west from the top of the Via Dritta, now known as the Via Filippo Nicolai. This central thoroughfare leads up the slopes towards the Palazzo Farnese. It was designed in the sixteenth century by the architect Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola, who also transformed the Palazzo Farnese from a fortified edifice into a Renaissance villa.3 Turner’s rendering of the palace’s main south-eastern façade indicates its unusual pentagonal shape, together with the curved double stairway ascending to a balustraded terrace. Two seated figures on the Piazza Farnese are shown in the foreground to the left.

Beneath, inverted relative to the sketch above, is a loose outline of Lake Vico in northern Lazio. Turner’s inscription reads ‘Lago’ and possibly ‘Ronciglione’, a neighbouring town that also borders the lake. In the bottom-left corner, parts of the study are labelled ‘1’ and ‘2’, implying a more extended vista. The peak labelled ‘1’ is presumably Monte Venere, a volcanic summit on the northern banks of the lake. Turner’s viewpoint was presumably facing west from near Caprarola. For further commentary on Lake Vico and a list of relevant views in the sketchbook, see under folio 3 verso (D21770).