Venetian Renaissance Research Articles

Masters of Venice: Renaissance painters of passion and power from the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Among the singular moments in the evolution of Western art, the Venetian Renaissance forged an artistic vocabulary of dazzling virtuosity. Celebrating the poetic potential of colour and beauty observed in nature, Venetian painters of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries transcended the spatial, textural, and emotional realism of their predecessors to create works unsurpassed in their sensual depictions, velvety surfaces, and unique and glorious treatment of light. Focusing on canonical works from Vienna's Kunsthistorisches Museum (one of the world's four great imperial museums, along with the Hermitage, the Louvre, and the Prado), this book's lavish illustrations and illuminating essays offer a rich introduction to the treasures of the Venetian Renaissance. Among the spectacular artworks are Mantegna's tortured Saint Sebastian, Titian's enigmatic Bravo (The Assassin) and sumptuous Danae, and a rare group of paintings by the elusive Giorgione, including Portrait of a Young Woman (Laura) and The Three Philosophers. The book also includes exemplary works by Veronese, Palma Vecchio, Bordone, and Bassano, among others, revealing the full range of Venetian accomplishment in the Renaissance era.

Analytical investigation on Renaissance Venetian enamelled glasses from the Louvre collections

Venetian enamelled glass is one of the most significant subjects of the art and technology of Renaissance glassmaking. These items were made in Venice from the second half of the 15th through the 17th centuries and were imitated in other European glassmaking centers during this period and again in Murano during the 19th century. Only a limited number of analyses of these masterpieces have been published up to now.In this paper the non-invasive PIXE–PIGE technique was applied to analyse the glass and enamels of eleven objects from the Louvre collection. The results disclose interesting details on the glassmaking technology and the raw materials and colourants used. The comparison between these data and the recipes in Venetian glassmaking treatises allowed identifying a group of objects corresponding to the genuine Venetian Renaissance production, while some discrepancies were found for other objects, probably being ascribable to a contemporary production outside Venice (façon de Venise) or to a 19th century Muranese manufacture.

The Badoer-Giustinian Portrait Busts: A Visual Ricordanza of a Noble Venetian Family

Although portrait busts were common in Florence and Tuscany during the quattrocento, they did not become widespread in the Veneto until the second half of the sixteenth century. Three bronze busts constitute one of the first known examples of dynastic bust portraiture in the Venetian Renaissance. Dating to the middle of the cinquecento, they portray Procurator Girolamo Giustinian (1470–1532), his wife, the heiress Agnesina Badoer Giustinian (1472–1542), and one of their sons. The bust of Agnesina Badoer has long been recognized as one of the first known female portrait busts in the Venetian realm, but the implications of the family group have not been explored. The identity of the son remains obscure and the identity of the busts' patron continues to be a matter of speculation. This paper examines the portraits by exploring the familial and political connections of the Badoer-Giustinian clan, which included the Grimani family, another force of Venetian power and patronage. It further proposes the identity of the son, potential circles of patronage for the ensemble, and the trio's original arrangement. More broadly, the busts are considered as monuments to the power of wealth, lineage, and the importance of the extended family in sixteenth-century Venice.

Acoustic simulation of renaissance Venetian churches

The Venetian Renaissance was a confluence of innovative expression across many artistic disciplines. While architects like Palladio and Sansovino were designing architectural masterpieces in many of the churches built during this period, composers such as Willaert, the Gabrielli, and Monteverdi were composing complex polyphonic works for split-choir ensembles, exploring the tonal and spatial dimensions of musical performance. The large churches built during this period have extremely long reverberation times and provide low clarity for understanding the complex polyphony composed for these spaces. This paper uses modern acoustic simulation techniques to provide insights into the acoustics of large Venetian churches as they would have existed during the Renaissance. In consultation with architectural historians, the authors have collected data on the structure and layout of Palladio's Redentore and San Marco on festal occasions, when large crowds, extra seating, and wall tapestries would have provided extra absorption. Using Odeon, acoustic simulations predict that under festal conditions these churches would have had significant improvements in T30, EDT, and C80. The doge's position in San Marco's chancel has particularly good clarity for sources located in Sansovino's galleries, supporting historian Laura Moretti's hypothesis that these galleries were installed for the performance of split-choir music.

The mermaids of Venice: fantastic sea creatures in Venetian Renaissance art

The mermaids of Venice: fantastic sea creatures in Venetian Renaissance art

Changing Functions of the Canine Image in Venetian Religious Paintings of the Sixteenth Century

This paper demonstrates how Venetian Renaissance artists perpetuated the symbolic contexts of animal symbolism, which they disguised under the veil of genre and narrative in religious art. Venetian painters of the Cinquecento shared an unprecedented penchant for depicting animals in general, and dogs in particular, in their secular and religious iconography. A dramatic pattern of change is demonstrated in their approach to canine iconography, Titian consistently adopted the negative moralistic connotations of the canine image, which had been transmitted to the Renaissance by medieval literature and art. It is demonstrated, by contrast, that the significance of dogs in themes of sacred art, as depicted by Tintoretto, are related to classical sources illustrating positive conceptions of the canine character and faculties. In literature of the sixteenth century the dog was increasingly cast in an authoritative role, attesting to miraculous and supernatural events by virtue of its superior perception or exemplifying the ideal of rationality. Classical sources also provided prototypes for canine epitaphs and laudatory poems in sixteenth century writings. While writers of the period praised canine cleverness, rationality, alertness, loyalty, vigilance, memory, prudence, and vision, Venetian artists were depicting the virtuous canine in allegorical contexts. By the late 1540s and 1550s, when Tintoretto began introducing canine images into his religious paintings, many of the relevant sources on animals had become available through the Venetian printing press.

:Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, and the Renaissance of Venetian Painting

The first three decades of the sixteenth century represent, visually and intellectually, the most exciting phase of the Renaissance in Venice - when Giorgione and the young Titian, together with Sebastiano del Piombo and Palma Vecchio, and others, were working alongside the older master Giovanni Bellini. This beautiful book presents an innovative survey of sixty Venetian Renaissance paintings of the calibre of Bellini and Titian's Feast of the Gods in Washington and Giorgione's Laura and Three Philosophers in Vienna. Unlike previous surveys of the period, this book refrains from dividing up the artists represented and instead explores the interrelationships between them. Through a series of thematic sections, the authors trace the rise of secular subjects - pastoral landscapes, female nudes, and romantic portraits - and the transformation of religious ones as well as innovations in style and technique. Cutting across genres, the book also focuses on the overarching themes of music, love, and time. Featuring essays by leading scholars, detailed entries on some of the most renowned pictures of sixteenth-century Italy, and revealing technical information, Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, and the Renaissance of Venetian Painting is an essential volume to own.

The Age of Titian: Venetian Renaissance Art from Scottish Collections reviewed by Philip Cottrell

Renaissance StudiesVolume 19, Issue 3 p. 400-405 The Age of Titian: Venetian Renaissance Art from Scottish Collections reviewed by Philip Cottrell First published: 31 August 2005 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1477-4658.2005.0001b.xRead the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Volume19, Issue3June 2005Pages 400-405 RelatedInformation

:Mediterranean Urban Culture 1400-1700

Contents: Part 1 Neighbours and neighbourhoods: the myth of the Mediterranean city - perceptions of sociability, James Amelang neighbourhoods and local loyalties in Renaissance Venice, Joseph Wheeler. Part 2 Religion, ethnicity and minority groups: foreigners and the city - the case of the immigrant merchant, Alexander Cowan the Jews and the city in the Mediterranean area, Donatella Calabi the culture of the street - the Calle de la Feria in Cordoba, 1470-1520, John Edwards between heresy and free thought, between the Mediterranean and the North - heterodox women in 17th century Venice, Federica Ambrosini. Part 3 On the margins: the cities of Puglia in the 15th and 16th centuries - their economy and society, Eleni Sakellariou economic conditions in Thessaloniki between the two Ottoman occupations, Alan Harvey Venetian Modon and its port (1358-1500), Ruth Gertwagen. Part 4 Cultural representations: the port towns of the Levant in 16th-century travel literature, Benjamin Arbel the cultural dynamics of representational space in Venetian Renaissance painting, Tom Nichols much for its culture as for its aims - the cultural relations of Venice and its dependant cities, 1400-1700, Nicholas Davidson.

:Virgil and the Myth of Venice: Books and Readers in the Italian Renaissance

This book, which is the first comprehensive study of its subject, shows how one traditionally esteemed author, the Roman poet Virgil, played an unexpectedly significant role in the shaping of Venetian Renaissance culture. The author draws on reception theory, the sociology of literature, and history of the book to argue that Virgil's poetry became a best-seller because it sometimes challenged, but more often confirmed, the specific moral, religious, and social values its Venetian readers brought with them to their texts. The texts that are used are the printed books of the fifteenth and sixteenth century printed books in which readers of the period encountered Virgil, the prefaces and commentaries that guided their responses, and, the marginal notes that record those responses. How the Renaissance Venetians saw themselves when they looked into their literary past tells us a good deal about them, but it also illuminates a number of issues at the centre of humanistic studies today, ranging from how reading takes place to the role of class and gender in fashioning interpretation. The wide range of interests that are touched on should make this book of value to scholars in the disciplines of classics, history, Renaissance studies, and Italian studies, as well as English literature and cultural studies.

Tintoretto: Tradition and Identity

Jacopo Tintoretto (1518-1594) is an ambiguous figure in the history of art. His unorthodox paintings are not readily classifiable, and although Venetian by birth, his claim to be truly of the Venetian School has long been in doubt. As a youth, he was quickly ejected from the workshop of the great Titian, accepted then, as now, as the apogee of Venetian painting. In the long career which nonetheless followed, Tintoretto increasingly abandoned the humanist narrative and sensual colour values which typified the work of Titian and the venerable Venetian Renaissance tradition. Critics and writers such as Vasari, Boschini, Ruskin and Sartre all placed Tintoretto in total opposition to the established artistic practice of his time, but this view offers an over-simplified and historically inaccurate answer to the question of Tintoretto's relation to tradition. This text offers an important re-assessment of Tintoretto's place in art history by showing that the artist, far from rejecting existing artistic practice, sought to create a modern technique and an aesthetic which, for all its originality and sophistication, made its first appeal to the shared emotions of the widest possible viewing audience.

Titian and Venetian painting, 1450-1590

List of IllustrationsPreface & Acknowledgments1. Venice, 15102. Precursors: Giovanni Bellini and the Birth of Venetian Renaissance Painting3. Giorgione, Sebastiano, and the Young Titian to c.15104. Titian: Early Success, 1516-305. Titian: International Fame, 1530-436. Titian: Maturity7. Titian: The 1550s8. Titian: The Late Works9. Titian's HeirsSelected BibliographyIndex

The Painter's Presence: Signatures in Venetian Renaissance Pictures

The Painter's Presence: Signatures in Venetian Renaissance Pictures

The Painter's Presence: Signatures in Venetian Renaissance Pictures

This article examines the signatures on Venetian paintings from about 1440 to about 1550. It argues that painters' signatures are one means of documenting the arrival of Renaissance taste and artistic practice in Venice and its development through the period. Furthermore, they index the changing business practices, professional status, and self-regard of Venetian painters.

The life of Titian

After Vasari's Lives of the Most Famous Artists, The Life of Titian by the seventeenth-century Venetian artist and writer Carlo Ridolfi is the most important contemporary documentary source for our understanding of the great Renaissance artist. This new critical edition, the first translation into English of Ridolfi's biography, illuminates his life, his artistic production, and his early critical reputation. The editors address art-historical questions of attribution, provenance, and documentation that Ridolfi's biography raises. Two introductory essays present the nature, scope, and importance of the biography for the study of Titian and Venetian Renaissance art and place Ridolfi in the tradition of Renaissance biography and artistic literature. The annotations provide a useful and current bibliography drawn from both art history and literature. The Life of Titian will be of interest to a wide audience of scholars and students of the history of Renaissance art, literature, language, and culture.

The Chapel of St. Anthony at the Santo and the Development of Venetian Renaissance Sculpture.Sarah Blake McHam

Previous articleNext article No AccessReviewsThe Chapel of St. Anthony at the Santo and the Development of Venetian Renaissance Sculpture. Sarah Blake McHam Lilian ArmstrongLilian Armstrong Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Speculum Volume 72, Number 1Jan., 1997 The journal of the Medieval Academy of America Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.2307/2865923 Views: 1Total views on this site Copyright 1997 Medieval Academy of AmericaPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Greek Inscriptions on Two Venetian Renaissance Paintings

he study and interpretation of Greek inscriptions on western works of art very often raises difficult problems, which can be solved only through close collaboration between philologists and art historians. We have tried to put this idea into practice in an examination of two Venetian Renaissance paintings. The project was initiated by Anna Pontani and relates to her long-term study and systematic collection of such inscriptions; her contribution is a philological and palaeographical analysis of the Greek inscriptions on the paintings at issue. The art historical aspects of the paintings, on the other hand, are discussed by Mauro Lucco. (The respective sections are identified below with the initials AP and ML.)

REVIEWS OF BOOKS

K. J. P. Lowe, Church and Politics in Renaissance Italy: The Life and Career of Cardinal Francesco Soderini, 1453–1524.John M. Najemy, Between Friends: Discourses of Power and Desire in the Machiavelli‐Vettori Letters of 1513–1515.Sarah Blake McHam, The Chapel of St. Anthony at the Santo and the Development of Venetian Renaissance Sculpture.A. W. Johnson, Ben Jonson: Poetry and Architecture.Richard Rambuss, Spenser's Secret Career.Sheila T. Cavanagh, Wanton Eyes and Chaste Desires: Female Sexuality in The Faerie Queene.

Sarah Blake McHam. The Chapel of St. Anthony at the Santo and the Development of Venetian Renaissance Sculpture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. 270 illus. + xvi + 271 pp. $125.

Sarah Blake McHam. The Chapel of St. Anthony at the Santo and the Development of Venetian Renaissance Sculpture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. 270 illus. + xvi + 271 pp. $125. - Volume 49 Issue 2

Blondes in Venetian Paintings, the Nine-Banded Armadillo, and Other Essays in Biochemistry

This is a delightful, well-written, readable collection of essays by Konrad Bloch, a 1964 Nobel Prize laureate and professor emeritus at Harvard. The subject matter can be characterized as a mini-text of history of biochemistry, from its earliest times to more recent era of molecular biology, which, not surprisingly, Bloch believes is really biochemistry in its true meaning and is a term that he does not fully accept. '... important biochemical processes were discovered because of impure ATP The book begins with intriguing essay Blondes in Venetian Renaissance Paintings, which takes off from his observation of the abundance of blondes [women not men] in Venetian Renaissance paintings. He found that women of time rinsed their hair in aqua bionda, for which there were a number of recipes, then sat in sun wearing a hat designed to expose their hair to sunlight. Bloch concludes on chemical grounds