Turner’s viewpoint for this panoramic vista across the Bay of Naples is the so-called Tomb of Virgil on the Posillipo hill, see folio 70 (
D15865; Turner Bequest CLXXXV 68). During the nineteenth century it was one of the most famous prospects in the city and Turner made a number of variant drawings of it during his 1819 sojourn. The view looks east across the bay towards Vesuvius and the Sorrentine peninsula and the composition continues on the opposite sheet of the double-page spread, see folio 70 verso (
D15866; Turner Bequest CLXXXV 68a). Visible on the right of this page is the steep slope of the Posillipo hill with the winding road known as the Salita di Sant’Antonio (present-day Rampe Sant’Antonio) which zig-zags from Piedigrotta towards the church of Sant’Antonio.
1 A contemporaneous description of the route as it would have been experienced by Turner can be found in Revd John Chetwode Eustace’s travel guide,
A Classical Tour through Italy (first published 1813):
Proceeding westward along the Chiaia and keeping toward the beach, we came to the quarter called Mergellina. To ascend the hill of Posilipo over whose sides this quarter spreads, we turned to the right, and followed a street winding as a staircase up the steep and terminating at a garden gate. Having entered, we pursued a path through a vineyard and descending a little we came to a small square building, flat-roofed, placed on a sort of a platform on the brow of a precipice on one side, and on the other sheltered by a super-incumbent rock. An aged ilex spreading from the sides of the rock, and bending over the edifice covers the roof with its ever verdant foliage. Numberless shrubs spring around, and interwoven with ivy clothe the walls, and hang in festoons over the precipice. The edifice before us was an ancient tomb – the tomb of Virgil!
2Turner made notes from this passage in the
Italian Guide Book sketchbook (Tate
D13955; Turner Bequest CLXXII 13).
Other sketches related to the expedition to Virgil’s tomb can be found on folios 69–69 verso, 71 verso (
D15904–D15905,
D15868; Turner Bequest CLXXXV 90–90a, 69a) and in the
Naples; Rome C. Studies sketchbook (Tate
D16102 and
D16143; Turner Bequest CLXXXVII 14 and 55). Compare also a drawing by James Hakewill (1778–1843),
Naples and Mount Vesuvius from above Virgil’s tomb, 1816 (British School at Rome Library), reproduced in Hakewill’s
Picturesque Tour of Italy (published 1820), a book to which Turner also contributed illustrations.
3
Nicola Moorby
October 2010
Revised by Nicola Moorby
June 2015
