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

This page contains part of larger composition which has spilled over from the opposite sheet of the double-page spread, see folio 35 (D14212; Turner Bequest CLXXIV 34). The subject is a view of Piazza d’Italia (part of present-day Piazza della Repubblica). Visible on this side are the distant towers of the Porta Palatina, one of the city’s ancient Roman gates which stands to the east of the square. During the eighteenth century the towers were incorporated into a prison and topped with the swallow-tailed crenellations seen here in Turner’s sketch. These additions were removed during the late nineteenth or early twentieth century when the gate became a free-standing structure once more and the towers were restored to their original Roman appearance.