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

During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, one of the most popular experiences for English visitors to Florence was to walk along the streets which lined the banks of the River Arno, known as the lungarni.1 Many of Turner’s sketches of the city depict views taken from these riverside thoroughfares. This study represents a prospect from the northern bank near present-day Piazza Piave and Ponte San Niccolò, looking downstream (west) towards Ponte alle Grazie.2 During Turner’s day this historic bridge was punctuated by buildings over the supporting piers, but these were removed during the late nineteenth century and the crossing itself destroyed during the Second World War. The composition spills over onto the opposite sheet of the double-page spread, see folio 33 (D16546), where most of the Ponte alle Grazie can be seen. Visible on this side, however, is the Porta San Niccolò, the easternmost gate of the medieval city walls, partially demolished in 1870 but still characterised by the tall fortified tower (present-day Torre San Niccolò), and, further downstream on the right, the campanile of the Church of San Niccolò Oltrano. Interrupting the flow of the river in front of the gate is a weir, the Pescaia di San Niccolò, whilst stretching across the hill in the background are the city walls and the Forte Belvedere.

A similar view was depicted by the eighteenth-century vedute artist Giuseppe Zocchi (1711–1767), although as Powell has discussed, Turner seems to have been unaware of Zocchi’s work.3