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

The four sketches on this page follow the route of Turner’s approach towards Ariccia, from bottom to top. The artist has embellished his customary pencil outlines with vigorous cross hatching and shading to indicate the cool and shady groves at the base of the hill. In classical mythology these woods, also known as the Parco Chigi, were believed to have been the hunting-grounds of the goddess Diana.1

The bottom two sketches record the view of the town from the road below: the first near the Palazzo Chigi (on the right) and the second looking up to the Church of Santa Maria dell’Assunzione, the outline of the dome of which can just be seen on the far right. The second sketch from the top depicts the view looking up at the town from the road on the west. In the centre are the dome and two towers of the Church of Santa Maria dell’Assunzione and on the right are the old city walls and the approach towards the gate.

As Augustus Hare wrote ‘Ariccia is entered by a gate with forked Guelfic battlements.’2 The sketch at the top is that entrance, the Porta Romana, which stands on the south-west side of the town at the top of a road snaking up the hill from the valley beneath. Like much of Ariccia’s architecture such as the main square, the Piazza di Corte, and the Church of Santa Maria dell’Assunzione, it was designed by Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini.

For a general discussion of Ariccia see folio 83 verso (D15455; Turner Bequest CLXXXII 82a).

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