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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner View of the Capitoline Hill, Rome, with the Church of Santissimo Nome di Maria 1819

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 16 Recto:
View of the Capitoline Hill, Rome, with the Church of Santissimo Nome di Maria 1819
D16514
Turner Bequest CXCI 16
Pencil on white wove paper, 113 x 189 mm
Inscribed by ?John Ruskin in red ink ‘16’ bottom right [very faint]
Stamped in black ‘CXCI 16’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The subject of this panoramic sketch is the Capitoline Hill from the north-east with the tower of the Senatorial Palace and the northern façade and campanile of Santa Maria in Aracoeli. Finberg incorrectly identified the domed church in the centre of the composition as Santi Martina e Luca in the Roman Forum. In fact it is Santissimo Nome di Maria in the Forum of Trajan. The faint indication of a second dome to the right may represent the nearby Church of Santa Maria di Loreto. The drawing continues on the opposite sheet of the double-page spread, see folio 15 verso (D16513) with the Torre dei Milizie. The view today is much altered by ‘Il Vittoriano’, a massive monument built 1885–1911 and dedicated to Victor Emmanuel, the first king of unified Italy.

Nicola Moorby
February 2009

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘View of the Capitoline Hill, Rome, with the Church of Santissimo Nome di Maria 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, February 2009, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-view-of-the-capitoline-hill-rome-with-the-church-of-r1138407, accessed 28 March 2024.