The Turner scholar C.F. Bell annotated Finberg’s 1909
Inventory entry (‘S. Marco, from the Piazzetta dei Leoni’): ‘looking up the Piazza to the Royal Palace’.
1 Bell marked Finberg’s similar text in
In Venice with Turner (1930): ‘Looking up the Piazza, westwards’.
2The view is to the south-west across the Piazzetta dei Leoni (Leoncini). The façade in the immediate foreground on the right, with its large roundel between half-columns, is the church of San Basso, now a concert hall; opposite is the ornate well beside the marble-faced blank arcade along the north front of the basilica of San Marco (St Mark’s), and to the right are the two lion statues which give the square its name. Over the far end of Piazza San Marco (St Mark’s Square) rises the campanile of San Moisè, and the campanile of St Mark’s itself looms over the roofline on the left. There are numerous detailed studies of the basilica and campanile from other angles in the contemporary Milan to Venice sketchbook.
There is a brief continuation to the left on folio 14 verso opposite (
D14514), where the Porta dei Fiori is shown. For other aspects of Venice on adjacent pages, see the sketchbook’s Introduction.
