LOOKING UP THE GRAND CANAL, VENICE, FROM NEAR THE ACCADEMIA DI BELLE ARTI
PENCIL. 1819
PLATE XLIX
ST. MARK’S, VENICE, WITH PART OF THE DUCAL PALACE
PENCIL. 1819
appeals had any special weight with Turner we do not know, but he set out for Italy within a month or two of the writing of these letters.
He went from Calais to Paris, followed the usual coach-route to Turin, explored the Lakes of Como, Lugano and Maggiore, and reached Venice by way of Milan, Brescia and Desenzano. He must have spent some time at Venice to judge from the number of drawings made there, then went to Bologna, Cesena and Rimini, and continued along the coast of the Adriatic to Ancona. At Ancona he turned inland to Loreto and, following the high post road through Recanati and Macerata, entered the Via Flaminia at Foligno, and passing through Narni and Orticoli entered Rome by the Porta del Popolo, probably sometime in October. From Rome he explored Frascati, Tivoli and Albano, and made a tour to Naples, Baiae, Pozzuoli, Pompeii, Amalfi, Sorrento and Herculaneum. He was back in Rome by the 2nd December, then visited Florence, and, recrossing the Alps on the 24th January 1820, returned through Piedmont and France. On the 12th February we find him dining at Grosvenor Place, London, with his friends the Fawkeses.