In 1845, a 26-year-old Ruskin made plans to travel abroad for the first time without his parents. Having just written volume 1 of Modern Painters, he promised his publishers a second volume, and quickly organised a trip to Italy where he could study Italian painting and gather scenery. His journey began in early April, and by June he had settled in Florence for a few weeks. He marvelled at works by Raphael, Masaccio, Cimabue, and other Florentine masters, studiously taking notes. Although Ruskin was feeling industrious, he wrote to his parents on July 5th complaining that it was 'so warm that I can hardly touch the paper with my damp hands' - and so it must have been a relief to escape the city for 'a delicious drive over Apennines, with thermometer at 28 Reaumur [35 degrees Centigrade]' a few days later on the 7th. That day, he got 'two nice sketches while voiturier stopped', one of which is believed to be a view of Cafaggiolo in Tuscany, now in the Fitzwilliam. VIEW HERE.

Ours may be the other drawing Ruskin mentions, dated 'July' and drawn, as inscribed, in the Apennines. However, as Professor Stephen Wildman points out:

A lot more work remains to be done on the 1845 and 1846 drawings.  Having had his 1845 tour paid for by his father, Ruskin travelled in the following year with his parents, as a kind of family holiday, following more or less the same route.  While there are more surviving drawings, unfortunately there are obviously no equivalent letters (his parents being with him) and the 1846 diary is fragmentary. They were based in Pisa and Florence during July, providing ample opportunity for the more elaborate pen and ink drawings of which yours is probably one (and the Tate's another).

The Tate's drawing is this, of Bologna, and it has obvious affinity with ours, VIEW HERE.

In Florence, Ruskin had made a study of the Old Masters, but in the Italian countryside he relied on Turner's Liber Studiorum (1807) for instruction and inspiration. Over 100 etchings made after Turner's sepia watercolours were included in the large book of studies, which Ruskin lugged around with him 'to tumble about and imitate. I propose making as many studies as possible in the same manner.' Using brown ink, he recreated Turner's limited, earthy palette, while touches of white bodycolour highlight the particular beauty he saw in the flecks of lichen, or concentrated pools of gleaming light pouring through the trees. 

Upon his return, Ruskin set to work on Volume 2 of Modern Painters. Reflecting on his recent trip, he considers the matter of drawing trees: an unimaginative painter might construct a tree bit by bit, measuring distances between branches resulting in 'a sameness and sickening repetition'. The imaginative painter, however, sees 'not only the tree, but the sky behind it; not only that tree or sky, but all the other great features of his picture', from sunlight to lichen.