Artists and Knowledge in Sixteenth-century Venice

Abstract

Venetian sixteenth-century painters did not express their ideas on painting in texts which could give us the chance to find out what their sources were. Titian, who was in touch with rulers and scholars all over Europe left us with the most extensive corpus of letters of any Renaissance artist, did not commit his thoughts about art to paper. The question how literate Venetian sixteenth-century painters were has recently been picked up with fresh enthusiasm. Titian, although not an intellectual or learned man, did have intellectual pretensions and was regarded as 'fit company for learned men' by his contemporaries. Venetian painters, as much as their colleagues elsewhere in Italy, did produce paintings for which more than everyday knowledge was needed. Although Venetian sixteenth-century paintings show enough traces of specialized knowledge from the part of their makers, there are hardly any indications that the latter did indeed read. Keywords:extensive corpus; intellectual pretensions; Renaissance artist; specialized knowledge; Titian; Venetian sixteenth-century