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

The Turner scholar C.F. Bell tentatively annotated Finberg’s 1909 Inventory entry (‘Triumphal arch’): ‘Rimini?’.1 Bell was presumably thinking of that city’s Roman remains; see under folio 57 verso (D14492; Turner Bequest CLXXVI 53a). With numerous detailed elements and extensive annotations regarding architectural orders and street signage, this urban ensemble, with what seems rather a Baroque arch flanked by arcades framing an impressive Renaissance building, a tower and a column across an open space in the distance, has eluded identification.2

Although as yet unconfirmed on account of topographical anomalies, the subject seems to be what is now the Piazza Aurelio Saffi in Forlì from its south-western corner, with the campanile of San Mercuriale to the east, its spire and corner turrets half-obscured by the central arch which appears to have linked the arcades at the junction of the streets now known as the Corso Giuseppe Garibaldi and the Corso Armando Diaz. Though recognisable in its essential outlines, the setting has undergone much rebuilding, but an old postcard shows it as the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele, with a building (since replaced) to the right of the campanile conforming to the selective articulation of Turner’s rendering, and a column with a statue of the Virgin Mary instead of the heavy, neo-Baroque base of the statue of Saffi now dominating the square.3 There are confirmed views of Forlì on adjacent pages; see under folio 44 verso (D14569; Turner Bequest CLXXVI 40a).

Cecilia 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), between which this page falls;4 for the artist’s overall route south-east between Bologna and Ancona, see the sketchbook’s Introduction.