Joseph Mallord William Turner

After Civita Castellana, Turner’s route to Rome left the Via Flaminia and led him south-west to Nepi, a town approximately twenty-three miles north of the Eternal City. This sketch shows a view of the skyline of Nepi from the Castel Sant’Elia road to the north. On the left are the towers of the fifteenth-century castle, the Rocca dei Borgia, and on the right is the eighteenth-century aqueduct with its double row of arches. The panorama continues on the opposite sheet of the double-page spread, see folio 82 verso (D14814), with the campanile of the Palazzo Comunale; the dome and cupola of the Church of San Pietro; and the spire of the cathedral (rebuilt in 1831).

Other studies related to Nepi can be found on folios 76 verso (D14802) and 80 verso–83 verso (D14810–6). See also Turner’s 1828 sketches in the Viterbo and Ronciglione Sketchbook (Tate D21788–D21808; Turner Bequest CXXXVI 12a–22a).