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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > First Italian Tour 1819-20 > Ancona to Rome Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Ruins in the Apennine Mountains near Campolarzo, probably the Rocca di Varano 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Ruins in the Apennine Mountains near Campolarzo, probably the Rocca di Varano’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 25 Recto:
Ruins in the Apennine Mountains near Campolarzo, probably the Rocca di Varano 1819
D14701
Turner Bequest CLXXVII 25
Pencil on white wove paper, 111 x 185 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘25’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CLXXVII 25’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
After passing the village of Belforte del Chienti, see folio 23 verso (D14698), the road to Rome enters the Apennines and winds its way through ever more dramatic scenery with the mountains rising to great heights on either side. John Chetwode Eustace described the terrain in A Classical Tour Through Italy:
The grandeur of the scenery increased as we advanced; beyond the stage Valcimarra, the mountains are naked rocky and wild for some miles; on a sudden they assume a milder aspect, sink in height, clothe their sides with sylvan scenery, and present on their wooded summits, churches castles and ruins, the usual ornaments of Italian mountains.1
Amongst the ruined ‘ornaments’ which Turner might have spotted from the road were the remains of the Abatia Sancti Benedicti de crypta Saxi Latronis, a Benedictine Abbey on the slopes above Valcimarra, and the Rocca Varano, a decaying fortress perched on the summit of a steep peak near Camerino. This sketch probably depicts the latter seen from near Campolarzo. See also folios 25 verso (D14702), 26 (D14703) and 26 verso (D14704).

Nicola Moorby
November 2008

1
John Chetwode Eustace, A Classical Tour Through Italy, London 1815, vol.I, p.308.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Ruins in the Apennine Mountains near Campolarzo, probably the Rocca di Varano 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, November 2008, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-ruins-in-the-apennine-mountains-near-campolarzo-probably-the-r1138863, accessed 19 September 2024.