J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

This page contains multiple inscriptions and minor landscape studies, composed with the sketchbook turned upright and upside down. In the upper section are two views of hilly Tuscan landscapes located south-east of Siena and Monteroni, the lower of which features a bridge. The subject for the upper view appears to be the small village of ‘Serravalle’, according to Turner’s top-right inscription. His vantage point for the lower study was likely at the intersection between the River Arbia and the Via Francigena, a traditional pilgrimage route Turner followed for much of his journey to Rome.1 The inscription ‘[?albirá]’ to the right may be an erroneous spelling of the village of Ponte d’Arbia. More specifically, the subject is likely the bridge at Arbia, first constructed in the fourteenth century and rebuilt in the seventeenth century.2 It has five arches, a feature to which Turner’s annotation ‘5’ presumably refers.

The lower half of the page features a list of place names from Turner’s southbound route from Siena, which is inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation. As noted by Alberto Satolli, the artist noted down his proposed itinerary several times while in Siena (see also folios 14 verso and 16 verso; D21615, D21619), until, on arriving in Radicofani, he specified ‘Thursday Orvieto’ (see folio 26 verso; D21638).3

Partly illegible, the first line of the list was transcribed in Finberg’s 1909 Inventory of the Bequest as ‘Monteroni Torrinieri 1 lire’.4 The whole list, much of which is also illegible, reads as follows:

The word ‘Lire’ following the ‘1’ in the first line implies Turner was calculating the costs of his onward journey.