View of Verona with the Castelvecchio and Ponte Scaligero

Painted in 1745 during Bellotto's Italian journey and now in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, this view of Verona with the Castelvecchio and the Ponte Scaligero is among his most admired Italian works. The Castelvecchio — the Scaligeri fortress built in the fourteenth century — and the adjacent Ponte Scaligero, with its distinctive battlemented towers and Gothic arches over the Adige, offered a subject combining medieval military architecture with the natural drama of a river crossing. Bellotto's Veronese views are rare within his surviving work and represent his engagement with a city whose architectural character differed significantly from the baroque splendour of Dresden or the Gothic grandeur of Warsaw. The Philadelphia Museum's holding makes this one of the most accessible Bellotto vedute in North American collections.

The canvas places the Castelvecchio at left and the Ponte Scaligero at centre-right, with the Adige providing the horizontal base of the composition. The medieval fortifications' rough stonework is rendered with Bellotto's architectural precision, while the river's flowing surface is handled with the horizontal brush movement typical of his water passages. The warm Veronese light gives the scene a golden quality that links this work to his earlier Italian production.