Throughout his career as a painter, Edward Cooke travelled extensively in Europe, visiting France, Holland, Italy, Spain, North Africa and Scandinavia. Paintings and drawings resulted from all his travels, but it is evident that the places that provided the strongest fascination for him besides the southern coastline of England were the beaches and estuaries of Holland and the topography of Venice and Italy.

This pencil drawing was made during his first Mediterranean tour of 1845–46, when he travelled through the south of France, to Florence, Rome, Salerno and Capri. It is a topographical drawing of a street and mediaeval-Renaissance buildings in the northern Italian town of Pavia. The carefully selected viewpoint showing the street receding in deep perspective allows the most representatives monuments of the town to be indicated: in the left background is the tower of Santa Maria di Carmine and next to it San Pietro in Ciel d’Oro, with some of the mediaeval towers for which the city is renowned.