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

As identified by Cecilia Powell, this street scene in Bologna is dominated by the city’s famous towers, Garisenda and Asinelli.1 Turner’s viewpoint is along the Via Rizzoli, looking eastwards. At the centre of the page is the twelfth-century Torre degli Asinelli, the taller of the two towers at a height of 97 metres.2 To the left, partially obscured by buildings, is the shorter Torre Garisenda, built at the same time and reaching 47 metres. This study is inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation.

See under folio 16 verso (D14861) for a list of additional views of Bologna in this sketchbook and from Turner’s first major Italian tour of 1819–20. He initially grappled with the towers’ proportions in a closer view from this direction in the Venice to Ancona sketchbook of 1819 (Tate D14641; Turner Bequest CLXXVI 79).