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

A somewhat random list of body parts in Italian with English equivalents (only two of which are precisely translated) is written down the left-hand side of the page:

‘Mento’ actually means the chin. The ‘P’ of the next word appears to be written over an ‘M’: if ‘papille’ is intended it may (improbably) indicate the similar word used in English, papillae, small protuberances on other organs – ‘papilla ottica’ means tastebud, for example. The next term is correct but ‘tallone’ (sic) is the heel rather than the ankle (caviglia). ‘Sotto mamille’ appears to indicate ‘beneath the breasts’ (mammelle). ‘Gola’ is the throat. ‘Mamille’ is right, if more correctly ‘mammella’ or ‘mammelle’. ‘Coscia’ is actually the thigh, the navel being ombelico, and the last phrase therefore appears to mean the thighbones.

There is a further, similar note at the top of the page opposite, folio 63 recto (D07462). Turner perhaps encountered the words in an Italian anatomical treatise, though Maurice Davies has not identified the source.1