Leaning Tower of Saragossa

Leaning Tower of Saragossa  

Henry Adlard after David Roberts, 1838 

Steel engraving  

Roberts depicts the octagonal leaning clock-tower in the Plaza de San Felipe in Zaragoza, the capital of Aragon. The iconic tower was built in brick between 1504 and 1512 by Christians and Mudéjares to house the city’s bell and clock, and it started to lean early on. Roberts, who did not visit Zaragoza during his Spanish tour, based his image on a sketch supplied by a military officer. It was published in the popular travelogue The Tourist in Spain and Morocco (1838) in which Thomas Roscoe compared it to the leaning Tower of Pisa, as did other travel writers. Roscoe appears to have visited the tower and praised the ‘magnificent’ views from the top over the surrounding landscape: ‘On every side, far and near, and beyond the valley of the Ebro to the mountains of Navarre, the hills of Castile magnificently soaring above the vast central plateau…’.  

Roscoe also highlighted the importance of the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Pillar in Zaragoza and emphasised that an artist could ‘spend days and weeks’ exploring ‘the treasures of the religious buildings, the colleges and convents of the city’. He also emphasised its ‘excellent institutions’ that encouraged learning, industry, and commerce. Considering the significance of Zaragoza in the early period of the Peninsular War, Roscoe dedicates a section to the city’s legendary heroine, Agustina, who had helped to defend the city.  

Roscoe’s positive comments contrast with Ford’s characterisation of Zaragoza as a ‘dull, gloomy and old-fashioned town’ in his Handbook for Travellers in Spain and Readers at Home (1845, vol. 2). Nevertheless, Ford highlights the city’s monumental heritage through learned descriptions, which distinguish his work from the often sprawling prose in Roscoe’s travelogue. 

Title: Leaning Tower of Saragossa.  

Author/Artist: Henry Adlard (1799-1893, engraver) after David Roberts (1796-1864) from a sketch by Lieut. Edridge of the Royal Artillery. 

Technique and Material: Steel engraving. 

Size: 140 x 94 mm. 

Published: Plate [6] from Thomas Roscoe, The Tourist in Spain and Morocco, London: Robert Jennings & Co., 1838, facing page 128.   

Date: 1838. 

Marks and Inscriptions: lower edge, left: ‘Drawn by David Roberts, from a sketch by Lieut. Edridge of the Royal Artillery’; centre: title as above / ‘London. Published Oct. 28. 1837, by Robert Jennings & Co 62, Cheapside’; right: ‘Engraved by H. Adlard’. 

Institution: Barry Ife Collection.