A large number of studies from the
Naples: Rome C. Studies sketchbook represent variant views of the Roman Campagna, the area of countryside encircling the outskirts of the Eternal City (Tate
D16122–D16139; Turner Bequest CLXXXVII 34–51). This is one of six such compositions where Turner has developed the landscape in watercolour (see also Tate
D16122–D16123,
D16129–D16130,
D16133; Turner Bequest CLXXXVII 34–35, 41–2, 45). Thomas Ashby was the first to identify the subject of this work as the Tiber Valley looking south from Monte Testaccio, an artificial hill in southern Rome constructed from a Roman pottery dump.
1 Dominating the foreground is a surviving section of the Aurelian walls which during the early nineteenth century still ran from the Porta San Paolo to the River Tiber. Today this area is a built–up industrial and residential district but in Turner’s day the river meandered through countryside which was virtually uninhabited, until it met the sea at Ostia. There is a small tower visible at the bend of the river near the centre of the composition, and the grey mass of building beyond on the left represents San Paolo fuori le Mura (St Paul Outside the Walls), one of the four great papal basilicas of Rome.
2 Turner saw this ancient medieval church prior to its almost complete destruction by fire in July 1823. It was subsequently reconstructed with a similar façade although with a new portico and a different bell-tower. In the foreground, the artist has included several human figures as well as the indistinct but recognisable forms of two chickens scratching in the dirt.
3