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

As Cecilia Powell first identified, the inscriptions in the top half of this page relate to works of art found within the Basilica of Santa Croce, Florence.1 Turner’s interests were wide-ranging and his notes encompass objects from the early Renaissance to the nineteenth century. Powell transcribed the artist’s handwritten lines,2 which are also repeated here with only minor variations from her text:

Parts of these notes refer respectively to three artists, Il Volterrano (also known as Baldessare Francheschini, 1611–circa 1690), Alessandro Allori (1535–1607) and Pietro Francavilla (1548–1615), who were collectively responsible for the decoration of the Niccolini chapel in the north (left) transept of Santa Croce.3 The chapel is noticeably more ornate than much of the rest of the basilica and Powell has discussed how ‘its classical vocabulary and rich decoration ... were a welcome sight to English eyes after the rigours of Tuscan Gothic’.4 Also mentioned is the wooden Crucifix by Donatello (circa 1386–1466) in the Bardi Chapel at the end of the north transept, and the artist Giotto (1266/7–1337) who painted a number of works in the church including frescoes of St Francis in the Bardi chapel and the altarpiece in the Baroncelli Chapel.5 Santa Croce is particularly famous for its many monuments to celebrated Italians and here Turner has mentioned the tombs of Michelangelo,6 Galileo, the eighteenth-century dramatist Vittorio Alfieri (by Turner’s contemporary, Antonio Canova), and the grave of Lorenzo Ghiberti, sculptor of the bronze doors of the Baptistery in Florence.7 The tiny sketch accompanying the fourth line of text represents the figure of Philosophy from the tomb of P.G. Signorini da Mulazzo (died 1812), a sculpture by the nineteenth-century Florentine Academician, Stefano Ricci (1765–1837). Turner’s adjacent notes reflect two attempts to spell the monument’s Latin inscription of the owner’s name, ‘Mulactio’.8 Finally, the last line references Taddeo Gaddi’s fresco, Tree of the Cross which is an illustration from the book Tree of Life by St Bonaventura. The fresco is found in the refectory (now the Museo dell’Opera di Santa Croce).9

The lower part of the sheet contains studies of frescoes from the Chiostrino di Voti (Cloister of the ‘Voti’) of the Basilica delle Santissima Annunziata (Church of the Blessed Annunciation). This small cloister connects the portico with the main basilica and was built to house the large number of votive offerings left to the thirteenth-century Servite saint, San Fillipo Benizzi. The walls are decorated with painted lunettes featuring the life of the saint, as well as other scenes depicting the life of the Virgin Mary. Turner has made rough copies of two of the latter. At the bottom of the page is a study of Jacopo Pontormo (1494–1557), The Visitation, 1516,10 which the artist has annotated with colour notes ‘Or’ and ‘Green with [...]’, whilst above this is Andrea del Sarto (1486–1531) Birth of the Virgin, 1513–4, similarly inscribed ‘orang’, ‘R[ed]’ and ‘G[reen]’.11 Further studies relating to Santissima Annunziata can be found on folio 36 (D16552). Powell has tentatively identified the final drawing, immediately beneath the notes on Santa Croce, as Pontormo’s frescoes of Fides and Caritas (Faith and Charity) from the façade of the basilica.12