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

The principal sketch is part of a more extended panorama of Nepi that continues on folio 18 verso (D2180) opposite, its dominant landmarks the aqueduct, cathedral and town hall. The section included here is dominated by the Rocca dei Borgia, also known variously as the Castello Borgia or Forte dei Borgia. Constructed in the late fifteenth century by the architect Antonio Sangallo the elder, this fortified castle features cylindrical towers at the four corners, and is part of a larger complex on the western side of the town. It was owned by Rodrigo Borgia, later Pope Alessandro VI, and subsequently occupied by his daughter, Lucrezia Borgia.1

At the top of the page is a slight study of Nepi with a stretch of the aqueduct. A minor study of a bridge in a landscape fills the right margin, oriented at a right-angle relative to the other views. This is one of twenty-one works depicting Nepi in the present sketchbook; for further commentary on Turner’s second visit to the town in 1828, together with a list of relevant works, see under folio 12 verso (D21788).