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

The subject of the main composition on this page is Vietri sul Mare, a town on the Amalfi coast to the immediate west of Salerno. Turner’s viewpoint is the road which rounds the foot of Monte San Liberatore from the Bay of Salerno and comes into Vietri sul Mare, (present-day Via Madonna degli Angeli). The central focal point of the composition is the dome of the seventeenth-century Church of San Giovanni Battista with the town of Raito visible beyond and the peak of Monte Falerio rising in the distance. On the shoreline to the left is the Torre Crestarella, one of a number of medieval watch-towers built along the Amalfi coast to defend against Saracen invasion. The second study in the bottom right-hand corner depicts the same tower looking from the opposite direction towards the Bay of Salerno.

From Vietri sul Mare the road turns inland and winds north through the Lattari mountains towards Molina, Cava de’ Tirreni, and ultimately to Naples. For related sketches from this route see folios 40–41 and 42–44 (D15986–D15988 and D15990–D15994; Turner Bequest CLXXXVI 38–39 and 40–42).