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

The Umbrian town of Spoleto lies thirteen miles from Foligno, approximately half-way on the nineteenth-century route between Ancona and Rome. As was often the case during this tour, the progress of the carriage did not give Turner much opportunity to stop and explore the centre of the town. He simply followed a predetermined course around the perimeter of Spoleto and consequently his sketches only depict subjects he could see from the road. This page contains two separate drawings which follow this principle.

The first view was drawn with the sketchbook held vertically like a notebook, and depicts a small street with the base of the thirteenth-century Torre dell’Olio. Turner has added the top of the tower separately on the far left-hand side. The street is the present-day Via Della Posterna, a road on the west side of Spoleto which leads up the hill towards the upper town and which remains virtually unchanged today. In the bottom right-hand corner Turner has recorded a house with a vaulted undercroft and a window with the shutters thrown back, where he has inscribed ‘W’, probably for the white wall, and ‘R’ or ‘B’ for what may be flowers on the ledge. This building is today a trattoria.1 Turner’s viewpoint is from the intersection with the road leading around the perimeter of the old walls, the Via Interna delle Mura. His route then continued on to rejoin the Via Flaminia to the south of the town, the vantage point for the second sketch on the page, which is part of a panoramic view of the Rocca Albornoziana and the medieval aqueduct spanning the Tessino gorge, the Ponte delle Torri. The view continues on the opposite sheet of the double-page spread, see folio 39 verso (D14729).

The Ponte delle Torri (Bridge of Towers) was built during the thirteenth century and derives its name, from the guard towers on either side. Visible on the right of this sketch is the Torre dei Mulini. Designed by Matteo Gattapone of Gubbio as an aqueduct to carry water from Monte Luco on the right to the town on the left, the bridge is 230 metres long and 80 metres high and provided an escape route from the adjacent castle when Spoleto was under siege.2 The impressive scale of the architecture combined with the dramatic scenery of the surrounding terrain made the bridge and the Rocca an obvious picturesque subject for artists, and the road to Rome from the south was a popular vantage point from which to survey the topography. Turner had probably seen James Hakewill’s drawing, The City of Spoleto 1817 (British School at Rome Library) which adopts a similar composition.3 Another sketch from the south can be seen on folio 43 (D14736). See also folio 41 (D14732) for an alternative view and its connection to the late oil painting, The Ponte delle Torri, Spoleto, (formerly Bridge and Tower) circa 1840–50 (Tate, N02424).4