Joseph Mallord William Turner

The Turner scholar C.F. Bell annotated Finberg’s 1909 Inventory entry (‘Various buildings’): ‘Fortifications of Rimini’.1 However, as Cecilia Powell has subsequently recognised, the subject is the imposing Renaissance Rocca at Forlimpopoli,2 a town between Forlì and Cesena. The view is south-west along the arcade on its western side, on what is now the Piazza Antonio Fratti, where the loosely indicated building at the centre does not survive. The south side of the fortress is shown on folio 47 verso (D14575; Turner Bequest CLXXVI 43a).

Powell has commented on the relatively uneventful phase of Turner’s journey between leaving Bologna and reaching Rimini (folios 43 recto–60 verso; D14566–D14598; Turner Bequest CLXXVI 39a–56a);3 for his overall route south-east between Bologna and Ancona, see the sketchbook’s Introduction.

Owing to a typographical error, this page is listed in Finberg’s 1909 Inventory as ‘42a’,4 with the number repeated for the verso, which an ‘a’ suffix customarily signifies.