One of Turner’s key objectives during his 1819 tour of Italy was to reacquaint himself with the work of the sixteenth-century Venetian school, whose work he had first seen in Paris in 1802. During his stay in Venice he therefore filled a number of pages of the
Route to Rome sketchbook with drawings and notes on pictures, particularly by the two great colourists, Titian (circa 1473/1490–1576) and Tintoretto (1518–94). Ian Warrell has identified the drawing on the central left-hand side of this page as a copy of
The Probatica Piscina, 1578–81, one of a famous cycle of paintings by Tintoretto on the ceiling of the Upper Hall in the Scuola Grande di San Rocco.
1 Further sketches related to the Scuola Grande and Chiesa di San Rocco can be seen on folios 24 verso, 25 verso–27 and 29 verso–30 verso (
D13904,
D13906–D13909 and
D13914–D13916). The inscription in the bottom left-hand corner possibly refers to the eighteenth-century Venetian artist, Bonazza, whose works were also visible at the Scuola Grande.
