View of the Ripa Grande in Rome

All authorities following H Egger, except Münz and Haverkamp-Begemann, accepted the traditional attribution to Pieter Bruegel the Elder, who is known to have been in Rome some time between 1552 and 1553, and who evidently visited the city’s main port on the right bank of the Tiber near the Porta Portese. The Chatsworth drawing shows the old Customs House and the Romanesque tower of S. Maria de Turri. The other buildings shown were destroyed in the 18th century to make way for the vast Ospizio di S. Michele. This seems to be the only surviving drawing by Bruegel of Roman buildings, but he must have also drawn at least the Colosseum to judge by his paintings of the Tower of Babel (Vienna and Rotterdam). He was the first to depict such a veduta from a low viewpoint; and perhaps the only certain view incontestable of attribution penned by Pieter Bruegel of his transalpine journey. (Description The Devonshire Collection of Northern European Drawings by Michael Jaffé, 2002 (five volumes))