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
D16123,
D16129–D16131,
D16133; Turner Bequest CLXXXVII 35, 41–43, 45). The work depicts a location to the north of Rome where the River Aniene joins the curve of the larger River Tiber. As Thomas Ashby first identified, the featured bridge is the Ponte Salario, a crossing near the confluence of the two rivers which carried the Via Salaria (Salt Road) across the Aniene to the north.
1 This ancient highway, said to derive its name from the salt trade, left the city at Porta Salaria in the Aurelian walls, east of the Borghese gardens between Porta Pinciana and Porta Pia, and led north-east as far as the Adriatic coast, approximately fifty miles south-east of Ancona.
2 In Turner’s composition, the Via Salaria is indicated by the broad streak of brown paint in the foreground which leads the eye of the viewer from the bottom left-hand corner towards the bridge in the middle distance. Beyond the bridge is a watch-tower, sometimes known as the Torre Salaria or the Tomb of Mario, described by Ashby as ‘a large tomb of tufa concrete ... with a chamber in the form of Greek cross and a medieval tower above’.
3 The bridge was destroyed in 1867 by Papal and French troops defending Rome against Giuseppe Garibaldi but the tower still survives today.
4 Related pencil views can be found on folios 37 and 38 (
D16125,
D16126) and Turner also made more detailed studies – see the verso of this sheet (
D41482) and
D41514, the verso of
D16121 (Turner Bequest CLXXXVII 33).