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

Turner noted inside the front cover of this sketchbook (D41050) that he arrived in Milan at noon on a Wednesday (14 January), complaining of ‘Snow all the way’. This is one of ten works in the sketchbook depicting the city’s famous Duomo, formally known as the Basilica cattedrale metropolitana di Santa Maria Nascente. See under folio 10 verso (D21683) for further commentary and a list of relevant views from this sketchbook and Turner’s earlier visit to Milan in 1819.

This street view glimpses the back of the cathedral, captured from just off the Piazza del Duomo. Turner’s vantage point was from La Corsia dei Servi, a wide thoroughfare since redeveloped and renamed the Corso Vittorio Emanuele II. Looking south-west towards cathedral, which is partially obscured by buildings in the foreground, Turner traced its distinctive profile, culminating in the tall lantern spire, constructed in the 1760s.1 The spire is surmounted with a gold statue of the Virgin Mary, known as Madonnina. The ‘S^t Mary’ of Turner’s lower inscription relates to the cathedral’s dedication to Mary, while the ‘dei Servi’ records the street name.