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

One of the most celebrated ancient monuments to be found outside of Rome was the Temple of Clitumnus (Tempietto sul Clitunno), a small structure dating from between the fourth to the eighth centuries, located on the road between Foligno and Spoleto in Umbria. Originally a pagan place of worship devoted to the divinity of the Clitumnus River, the source of which lies nearby, the building was later adopted as a Christian chapel, the Church of San Salvatore. This sketch depicts a complete view of the temple looking up from the banks of the stream to the north-west. On the slopes of the hill to the left is the medieval fortress of Pissignano, see folios 36 (D14722) and 36 verso (D14723), whilst on the right just beneath the temple is part of an old grain and oil mill built beside the stream. This building still exists today as a hotel.1 As John Chetwode Eustace described in A Classical Tour Through Italy, the temple consists of:

In preparation for his first trip to Italy Turner made detailed notes from this passage in the Italian Guide Book sketchbook (see Tate D13939; Turner Bequest CLXXII 4a).

During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the temple was a well-known landmark for travellers on the Via Flaminia, adjacent as it was to the first post stage after Foligno, Le Vene.3 It was also a popular subject for artists and writers and Turner would have been familiar with its appearance from various other contemporary sources. As a young man he had made a study of Richard Wilson’s painting Temple of Clitumnus 1754, ⁴ which at the time was owned by the Prince of Wales, although it is not clear whether Turner worked from the original or from a reproductive print (see Wilson sketchbook, Tate D01195–D01196; Turner Bequest XXXVII 78–9).5 A tiny pen-and-ink view of the temple appears in the Italian Guide Book sketchbook, copied from John ‘Warwick’ Smith’s Select Views in Italy (see Tate D13964; Turner Bequest CLXXII 18, second from top left). Turner was also familiar with Stourhead, the estate of his friend and patron, Sir Richard Colt Hoare, the gardens of which contained a structure inspired by the Corinthian temple, the Temple of Flora, built in 1744–6 by the architect Henry Flitcroft.6 Furthermore, he may also have seen other images of it such as a lecture diagram of the elevation and plan of the portico by his friend, Sir John Soane (John Soane Museum, London), or a topographical drawing by James Hakewill, his collaborator on Picturesque Views in Italy, published 1819.7

Above all, Turner would have been mindful of the verses devoted to the temple and the nearby Source of the Clitumnus from Canto IV of Lord Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, published in 1818:

In 1832 Turner exhibited a visual homage to Byron, a large oil painting Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage – Italy (Tate, N00516) accompanied by a quotation which begins ‘and now, fair Italy! Thou art the garden of the world’.8 As Cecilia Powell has noted the landscape composition contains a panoramic amalgam of many individual places Turner had visited on his Italian travels, including a classical portico based upon the Temple of Clitumnus.9 The appearance of the structure is most similar to the prospect of the temple in this drawing.

Turner’s other on-the-spot sketches of the site explore the situation of the temple from both the north, see folios 35 (D14720), 36 (D14722) and 36 verso (D14723), and the south, see folios 37 (D14724) and 38 (D14726). He also made detailed studies of the parts of the façade such as the Corinthian pillars, the tympanum above the portico and the inscription across the front, see folios 36 verso (D14723) and 37 (D14724). There are no sketches, however, of the vaulted interior decorated with frescoes so it is possible that he did not have the inclination or the leisure to explore inside.