Catalogue entry
As indicated by the inscribed place name, this page shows a distant view of Belforte del Chienti, a small hillside village approximately fourteen miles south-west of Macerata. Visible on the horizon can be seen the cone-shaped bell-tower of the Church of Sant’Eustachio and just to the right of that, the domed lantern of the clock tower of the Palazzo Comunale. Related sketches can be found on 24 verso (
D14700), as well as in the
Route to Rome sketchbook (Tate
D13901; Turner Bequest CLXXI 23).
The single arched bridge in the foreground is probably the same one which appears in James Hakewill’s drawing of 1817, ‘In the Apennines near Belforte’.
1 The view corresponds to the description by John Chetwode Eustace in
A Classical Tour Through Italy:
A little beyond Tollentino we began to enter the defiles of the Apennines; the hills closing and swelling into mountains, the river roughening into a torrent, and the rocks breaking here and there into huge precipices. The road runs along the sides of the hills, with the Chienti rolling below on the left. A little beyond Belforte, a view opens over the precipice towards a bridge, and presents a landscape of very bold features.
2Turner himself also knew this passage since he made notes upon the relevant pages in the
Italian Guide Book sketchbook (see Tate
D13939; Turner Bequest CLXXII 4a).
Nicola Moorby
November 2008
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