Carlo Bossoli

This elaborate representation of the port of Civitavecchia is an important addition to Carlo Bossoli's œuvre, as no other depictions of this view by the artist are known. The itinerant painter was recorded passing through the port on 9 June 1839, having travelled to Italy from Malta, and again on 24 June 1844, on his way from Naples to Rome.¹ The skillful execution of the present work, however, suggests that it should be dated to the artist's mature period, towards the mid-1850s. Bossoli likely built up the picture, therefore, relying on sketches he had executed when visiting the coastal city years beforehand, as he is known to have done when painting numerous other works.²

During the 19^th century, and still today, Civitavecchia was the principal port for Rome and central Italy. The city had been under Papal control for almost a millennium, but was targeted by the Napoleonic Empire, which assumed control of the region during the latter part of the 18^th century and the early 19^th century. After the fall of the French, the papacy resumed authority in the city, which later became part of the Kingdom of Italy in 1870.

Civitavecchia had long been frequented by artists: in 1508, Pope Julius II (1443–1513) commissioned Donato Bramante (c. 1444–1514) to construct a fortress fit to defend the port against pirate incursions. Upon Bramante's death, the project was taken over by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger (1484–1546) and Giuliano Leno (b. 1467–1477/8), and completed by Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564) in 1535. The fortress still stands today.

We are grateful to Dott.ssa Arabella Cifani for endorsing the attribution to Bossoli on the basis of digital images.

¹ A. Peyrot, Carlo Bossoli: luoghi, personaggi, costumi, avvenimenti nell'Europa dell'Ottocento, visti dal pittore ticinese, 2 vols, Turin 1974, vol. I, pp. 61, 92–93.

² For example, Bossoli first travelled through Constantinople in 1839 on his way back to Italy from Odessa and the city was a regular staging post on the journeys the artist made between Crimea and Italy in the early 1840s. He returned to the subject, which had evidently made an indelible impression upon him, throughout his life, though, using drawings he had made while there.