The picture is a detail of Modern Rome – Campo Vaccino by Turner. He had been painting Rome for twenty years and this was his last picture of the city, completed in 1839. It was sold by Sotheby’s in 2010 for £29.7 million – a record for a Turner – to the Getty Museum. But records are made to be broken.
In 2014 another Roman Turner was sold by Sotheby’s. Rome, From Mount Aventine went for £30.3 million to a telephone bidder who it seems has never been identified.
Like Barons Court, Rome has changed in the past two hundred or so years but unlike most British cities its history can still be traced through its architecture. This is James Lees-Milne’s theme in Roman Mornings (first published 1956) and will be my theme this week as I look at the eight buildings he chose, many of which are new to me.
His eight discursive essays illuminate eight periods in Roman architecture, from Ancient Roman to Rococo. It is not a guide book so I will also have the best guide book to Rome, originally published in 1965, The Companion Guide to Rome by Georgina Masson and John Fort. The weather looks perfect – sunny and 20 C – and I’m looking forward to my pilgrimage in the steps of J L-M.