Joseph Mallord William Turner

The subject of this complex drawing is the view from the second floor loggia in the Vatican, looking east across St Peter’s Square towards the city beyond. The panorama incorporates the vista from the Prati di Castello and the Pincian Hill on the left, past the Castel Sant’Angelo and the sweeping bend of the River Tiber in the centre, to Trastevere and the Janiculum Hill on the far right. Visible landmarks across the line of the horizon include, from left to right: the Villa Medici and the trees of the Borghese Gardens; Trinità dei Monti; the Castel Sant’Angelo; the Quirinal Palace and the two domes and bell-tower of Santa Maria Maggiore; the Torre dei Milize; the Basilica of San Giovanno in Laterano; the Capitoline Hill with the tower of the Senatorial Palace; and the domes of San Giovanni dei Fiorentini and San Carlo ai Catinari. In addition to the topographical accuracy of the wider prospect, the foreground of the study incorporates the roofscape across Bernini’s colonnades in St Peter’s Square and part of the Papal Palace, as well as part of the interior of the famous Raphael Loggia.

There are three levels of loggie in the Vatican, covered galleries with open arcades bordering the Cortile di San Damaso, in the eastern wing of the Papal Palace (Palazzo Apostolico). First commissioned from Bramante (1444–1514) by Pope Julius II, the responsibility for the work passed to the official architect of Pope Leo X, the Renaissance master, Raphael (1483–1520), and it was the second floor loggia, on the same level as the Apartments of Julius II and Leo X, which was the first to be completed. Comprising a gallery of thirteen arches and sixty-five metres long, the loggia was decorated in 1517–19 by Raphael and his assistants, with grotesque patterns modelled on those in Nero’s Domus Aurea [Golden House], as well as fifty-two ceiling frescoes of scenes from the Old and New Testaments, popularly known as the ‘Bible of Raphael’. Turner visited the loggia as part of his extensive exploration of Rome in 1819 and made a number of detailed sketches of the interior, see the Tivoli and Rome sketchbook (see Tate D14955–D14965 and D14969; Turner Bequest CLXXIX 13a-21 and 24). This drawing incorporates the southern end of the loggia with the decorative panels on the end wall, above an inscription dedicated to Pope Paul III. Beneath the inscription is a marble bust of Raphael by Alessando d’Este (1787–1826), which had recently been given to the Vatican by Antonio Canova and placed on a plinth in its current location (for a detailed discussion see Tate D14969; Turner Bequest CLXXIX 24).1 Slouched against the pillar is the figure of a man with folded arms and crossed legs, dressed in the distinctive striped uniform of the Pontifical Swiss Guard.