_The_Ponte_Delle_Torri_-_Spoleto_C.1840-5_-_William_Turner_-_Tate_Britain.jpg&width=1200)
The Ponte Delle Torri, Spoleto
J. M. W. Turner·1840
Historical Context
The Ponte delle Torri at Spoleto, painted around 1840, depicts the spectacular medieval aqueduct that spans the Tessino gorge below the hilltop city of Spoleto in Umbria — a bridge of ten arches rising over eighty metres above the gorge floor, one of the most dramatically situated pieces of medieval engineering in Italy. Turner encountered the bridge during his Italian travels, and its combination of monumental human achievement — the bridge's construction required engineering skill comparable to the Romans — with a naturally vertiginous gorge provided exactly the subject combination he found most artistically fertile. His Italian architectural subjects of the 1840s are among his most purely contemplative paintings: the bridge becomes an occasion for reflecting on the relationship between human aspiration and the natural world that dwarfs it, a theme that runs through his entire career from the Alpine crossings of the 1800s to the late abstract storm paintings.
Technical Analysis
Turner renders the spectacular bridge and gorge with dramatic perspective, using atmospheric effects to enhance the vertiginous depth and the contrast between the engineering structure and the wild gorge.
Look Closer
- ◆Look at the Ponte delle Torri itself — the extraordinary Roman aqueduct that spans the gorge between Spoleto and the hill of Monteluco, its arches preserved to their full height and visible across the vertiginous space.
- ◆Notice the depth of the gorge the bridge spans — Turner renders the precipitous drop beneath the ancient arches with atmospheric perspective that makes the depth feel genuinely vertiginous.
- ◆Observe the Umbrian landscape surrounding Spoleto — the warm Italian hill country with its characteristic vegetation and light quality that Turner captures with the Mediterranean warmth of his Italian palette.
- ◆Find the scale figures Turner includes — tiny humans on or near the bridge whose scale communicates the aqueduct's extraordinary engineering achievement and the gorge's impressive depth.
.jpg&width=600)