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

Cecilia Powell has identified the panoramic view on this double-page spread as Frascati from the terrace of the Villa Aldobrandini (also known as the Villa Belvedere), one of the great estates built for the papal nobility during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In the foreground of the sketch are the gardens of the villa. In the middle distance of this page is the Cathedral, the Basilica of St Peter the Apostle, with its two bell-towers flanking the Baroque façade, whilst the panorama continues on the opposite sheet with the roofs of Frascati, see folio 31 (D15353). In the far distance, beyond the plain of the Roman Campagna are peaks of the Apennine mountains.

Powell points out that Turner’s viewpoint is virtually the same as that chosen by James Hakewill in his view of Frascati, published in A Picturesque Tour of Italy, 1820, although Turner’s sketch extends slightly further to the right.1 The town’s topography is somewhat different today owing to the heavy bomb damage Frascati sustained during the Second World War. Two other similar sketches can be found on folios 30 and 31 verso–32 (D15351 and D15354–D15355).