Arguably the most famous of all the surviving monuments of classical Rome is the Flavian Amphitheatre, a huge building universally known as the Colosseum, which stands at the eastern end of the Roman Forum between the Palatine and Esquiline Hills. Built 72–80 AD., the immense ruin was as popular with tourists during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as it is today and its crumbling but impressive remains represented a constant source of inspiration for artists. Turner’s 1819 sketches demonstrate that he studied the Colosseum from a variety of viewpoints both inside and outside the celebrated structure.
1 He had read John Chetwode Eustace’s book,
A Classical Tour Through Italy, which stated that ‘Never did human art present to the eye a fabric so well calculated by its size and form, to surprise and delight’ (see the
Italian Guide Book sketchbook, Tate
D13943; Turner Bequest CLXXII 7).
2 Eustace recommended viewing the building first from the north, and then the south before finally entering its ‘lofty arcades’ to consider the ‘vast mass of ruin ... insulated walls, immense stones suspended in the air, arches covered with weeds and shrubs, vaults opening upon other ruins ... in short, above, below, and around, one vast collection of magnificence and devastation, of grandeur and decay’.
3 This sketch depicts a view of the interior looking from the western end towards the higher section of surviving wall on the opposite side. Visible at various intervals around the perimeter of the central arena are some of the fourteen Stations of the Cross, built in 1750 after Pope Benedict XIV consecrated the building to the memory of the early Christians who were martyred there. The choice of viewpoint is similar to that by John ‘Warwick’ Smith,
Internal view of the Coliseum from
Select Views in Italy, copied by Turner in the
Italian Guide Book sketchbook (see Tate
D13966; Turner Bequest CLXXII 19, top right). Further sketches of the interior can be found within the
Rome: C. Studies sketchbook (
D16380 and
D16389; Turner Bequest CLXXXIX 51 and 58), and within the
Small Roman C. Studies sketchbook (see Tate
D16414,
D16420,
D16451; Turner Bequest CXC 14a, 18, 38).
