Venice Essay 2

8/7/2019 Venice Essay 2

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Word Count: 3043

Jacob Burckhardt, in 1860, described the state as a work of art. Discuss

this with reference to Grittis and Sansovinos renovatio urbis.

It is not difficult to see why Jacob Burckhardt would have been moved to

call Venice a work of art, the citys written and pictorial legacy supplies

the modern historian with fervent, adoring and even critical accounts of

the its visual qualities, its governmental system and its inhabitants. In

1364 humanist scholar Petrarch called her the home of liberty, peace and

justice1 yet in the nineteenth century D.H Lawrence called her

abhorrent, green and slippery.2 Whether full of praise or critical, Venice

has seldom been described without bold and imaginative phrases.

The very nature of a work of art is that it is contrived, created from a

plan with intent and purpose, to provide aesthetic visual or sensual

pleasure. The state as a work of art may be interpreted in multiple ways,

visually, conceptually and in the creative workings of its political system.

I should like to contrast the artificial with the organic by observing how

scholars such as Deborah Howard have also likened Venice to the

workings of a biological organism, a dolphin3. Her understanding of this

1J.R Hale, Venice and its Empire in The Genius of Venice 1500-1600, J Martineau and C Hope (ed.) London,

1983, p.112

D.H Lawrence, Pomegranate, Line 8,in Complete Poems of DH Lawrence, 1994, Hertfordshire, p.2183

Deborah Howard, Venice as a Dolphin: Further Investigations into Jacopo deBarbaris View,Artibus et

Historiae, Vol.18, No. 35, 1997, pp.101-111


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analogy is based around the topographical shape of Venice. Additionally,

one might expand this reference to explore how Venice, similar to the

dolphin, can be conceptualised as the opposite to a work of art; an

organic being, un-contrived and a product of natural developments over

the course of time. At the heart of this theory lies Hegelian philosophy of

the Zeitgeist, which sees architecture reflecting the spirit of the age4 in

an evolving cultural movement that developed spiritually and manifested

itself in all aspects of civilisation.

Fig.1

The architectural touches which Jacopo Sansovino (1486-1570) brought

to Venice involve far too many buildings to mention all of them in this

essay; over the course of forty years in Venice he secured the permanent

post ofproto, the first architect to the Procurators of St. Marks,

renovating several of the buildings in the area as well as commissions

across the city for individual citizens and the scuoles of Venice. In order

4C. Hazel, Understanding Architecture, 2

nded. Oxon, 2005, p.46


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to strengthen my argument I will limit my discussion to certain key

features of the Library, the Zecca (Mint) and the Piazzetta itself.

The commissions given to Sansovino asproto, begun under Doge Gritti,

conform by their nature with what Michael Baxandall indentified as the

experience of the fifteenth century painter whose work is the deposit of a

social relationship5. This was a fairly prosperous relationship in

Sansovinos case, for he was known to have been on very good terms

with Doge Gritti and a number of the patriciate. Equating to Baxandalls

description, the procurators of Saint Marks were the patrons and

Sansovino the artist, the culminating relationship is one of the ways in

which we might understand Sansovino and Doge Grittis urban

renovations to contribute to Venice as a work of art in the visual sense.

Fig.2

5Michael Baxandall, Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy, 2

nded, Oxford, 1988, p.1.


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One of Sansovinos first tasks was to clear the stalls, latrines, gamblers,

money changers, bakers and butchers which cluttered the area of the

Piazzetta at the base of the two columns in the citys main political centre

opposite the Doges Palace (fig.2). Though they were eyesores6 they

were not inefficiently positioned for a trading city; the Piazzetta was the

entrance for foreign visitors to the city who needed the money changing

facilities and use of the hostelries. However these businesses visible on

arrival to Venice certainly did not uphold the values the state would have

wished to emulate. Deborah Howard writes fluently about the artifice and

skill involved in Sansovinos part for not only removing these sellers but

housing them elsewhere and creating space for shops in premises on the

Piazza so his patrons, the Procurators of St. Marks could still receive the

rents of the shopkeepers. The cleansing of the Piazzetta is just one of the

ways in which Venice, as a work of art was made to look more beautiful

from an aesthetic point of view as well as the ideology behind the need to

rid the clutter of the commercial world from the political space.

There appears to be a gendering of space included and considered in

Sansovinos Venetian architecture for the Piazzetta as well as the

commercial and political divide which might be used to consider the state

as a work of art in the nature of these purposeful and deliberately

constructed separations. If one applies what Patricia Fortini Brown

6Deborah Howard, Jacopo Sansovino: Architecture and Patronage in Renaissance Venice, New Haven and

London, 1975, p.12


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describes as a period eye7 to paintings such as Gentile Bellinis

Procession of the True Cross in Piazza San Marco , 1496, (fig.3) it is

possible to obtain a glimpse of how Venetians in the fifteenth and

sixteenth centuries understood the function of spaces. In Bellinis

painting, society is divided within its own sections of the Piazza; women

peer down from the upper storeys of the buildings whilst the men are

involved in the state procession, occupying segments in the square below.

Interestingly this male and female division between upper and lower

levels in buildings of San Marco is echoed in the position of the feminoni

on the Library designed by Sansovino, and the herms on his Zecca

analysed by Eugene J. Johnson. The Feminoni who welcome us to L ibrary

suggest the feminine gender of the Ionic order of the piano nobile.8

These Ionic columns of the Librarys upper storey continue around the

corner into the Piazza at the same height where Gentiles women reside

above the men below. The ground floor of the Zecca next to the Library is

a correspondingly male sphere, demonstrated by the masculine herms

and the mixture of rustic and Doric orders of the doorway. This gendered

division serves as yet another example of the craft involved in the direct

line from government authority working through the architecture,

designed by Sansovino.

7Paul H. D. Kaplan Untitled Review of Patricia Fortini Brown, Venetian Narrative Painting in the Age of

Carpaccio, New Haven and London, in Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. 43, No. 3, 1990, p. 6148

Eugene J. Johnson, Portal of Empire and Wealth: Jacopo Sansovinos Entrance to the Venetian Mint, The Art

Bulletin, Vol. 86, No.3, 2004, p.451


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Fig.3

Though Deborah Howard tells us that Sansovino did not invent the

commercial and political split between the Rialto and Saint Marks, the

clearing of stalls from the Piazzetta solidified the zoning of the two areas9.

It is as if the head and heart of her dolphin analogy were growing and

developing. This commercial and political division was an ancient

tradition in Italian urban planning, given a new life by Quattrocento

architectural theorists such as Alberti and Filarete.10 Howards words,

new life echo the exact translation of the word Renaisance which is re-

birth, this further exemplifies the theory that changes in the state of

Venice evolved with the spirit of the times. This maturing attitude is

recorded in the actions of Doge Andrea Gritti who in 1525 attempted to

eliminate the undecorous11 pig chase ofgiovedi grasso. This explains a

new consciousness of the role of civic space in Venice, and marks the

9Howard, 1975, p.12

10Howard, 1975, p.14

11Eugene J. Johnson, Jacopo Sansovino, Giacomo Torelli and the Theatricality of the Piazzetta in Venice,

Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol.59, No.4, 2000, p.441


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start of the sixteenth centurys (...) programme to ennoble the city

centre.12

Sansovino was to provide the desired architectural framework for Grittis

move towards a more civilised and less medieval and barbaric society. It

is therefore possible to conceptualise this solidification of zoning and

order as a more organic, development from cluttered medieval dwellings

towards a rational, renaissance appropriation of space. Delorinzi calls

the Venetian Renaissance autochthonous13 affirming that in a similar

thread of thought to the Zeitgeist theory, Venetian architecture had a life

and language of its own in the imagination of those who wrote about it.

One must remember the political climate in which Sansovino was working,

Venice was economically secure in the 1530s and Sansovinos

commissions affirm the confidence of the affluent republic at the time.

However Venice did not remain so over the course of his career due to

conflict with the Turks and the wars of the League of Cambrai. The sack

of Rome in 1527 had weakened its legacy and caused the exodus of some

of Romes most influential men such as Jacopo Sansovino himself and the

writer Aretino, both of whom Venice appropriated14. The intellectual

capabilities of these artists, along with the architecture, literature and art

they produced enabled Venice to stake its claim as the new Rome.

12Howard,1997, p.104

13Paolo Delorenzi, The Doges Palace, Venice, 2010, p.23

14Delorenzi, 2010, p23


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Sansovino brought with him the bold legacies of Bramante15 the

celebrated Roman architect and this style was characterised by classical

obelisks and friezes rich withputtiframed by Doric and Ionic capitals.16

This allantica style, Tafuri writes, contained a spirit of calculation17 and

it is likely that the intelligence of the classical style which Sansovino and

Gritti favoured18 contributes to Burckhardts implication that the state was

a contrived work of art, in terms of the construction of the visual

assimilation with Rome and the stylistic conventions which Sansovino

adhered to.

It is in this Roman, monumental style that Sansovino designed the library

to which he would devote his life (Fig.4). Tafuri tells us it is not possible

to imagine the direction in which the architectural history of the

Serenissima might have moved without the contribution of a protagonist

of the Roman ferment like Sansovino.19

It seems likely however that the influence of Roman architecture was a

natural progression being made all over Italy as Florence competed with

Rome, Milan and Naples and certain Roman artists relocated elsewhere

after 1527 and the spread of classical proportions marked the spirit of the

age or Zeitgeist.

15Manfredo Tafuri, Interpreting the Renaissance, New Haven and London, 2006, p.220

16Francesco Da Mosto, Francescos Venice, London, 2007, p.127

17Tafuri, 2006, p.219

18Howard Burns, Architecture in The Genius Venice 1500-1600, J. Martineau, C. Hope (ed.), London, 1983,

p.2619

Tafuri, 2006, p.220


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Sansovino began implementing his designs for the Library in 1537. The

structure consists of 21 windows in bays framed by Ionic columns above

the Doric order on the ground floor. Sansovino died in 1570 without

seeing its completion but the Library continued to enforce the admired

Ancient Roman qualities of order and solidarity and used them to uphold

Venice.

Fig.4

The Library exemplifies how Sansovino was able to display his knowledge

and ingenuity through the art of subtlety. Not only did he solve the

problematic continuation of the Doric frieze around the corner of the

Library where the Piazzetta meets the Piazza but his use of classical

elements, still a novelty in Venice, were the start of an architectural

revolution.20 However they were not so out of place as to be considered

indecorous. In 1537 Aretino his contemporary wrote, Who is not

20Da Mosto, 2007, p.127


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overwhelmed on seeing the carved Doric order with the Ionic above,

together with the appropriate decoration...?21

Though visually Sansovinos Library was created for aesthetic beauty as

well as to serve its civic purpose, there is also scope with which to view

his creation as a natural and organic response to the restrictive terrain, as

opposed to Burckhardts view of Venice as a contrived work of art.

However in his quest for visual order he compromised the structural

integrity of the building. Contemporary architectural writer Serlio in 1537

noted in Venice it is custom to build in a way which is different from that

of the other cities in Italy22. Most Venetian houses and palaces were built

with wood which may expand and contract with the swelling of the waters

in the city where stone cannot. In 1545 a vault in the first bay salone in

the library collapsed due to the inflexibility of the stone ceiling. Sansovino

claimed gunfire from a nearby ship together with the frost had weakened

the stone vault.23 Sansovino was jailed briefly, his pay was frozen and he

was ordered to repair the damages at his own cost, a venture which

practically bankrupted him and the vault was re-worked with wooden

beams. Here is one incident where the plan of the artist could not be

realised and the construction of Burckhardts Venice as a work of art

stumbled in its creation. The end result of Sansovinos contribution to the

state of Venice was as much subject to the demands of the terrain than

21Aretino The Benefits to Jacopo Sansovino of Working in Venice in Venice A Documentary History 1450-

1630, D. Chambers, Brian Pullman (ed.), Toronto, 2001, p.39122

Burns, 1983, p.2423

Da Mosto, 2007, p.127


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the master plan he had mapped out. It is as if the city imposed itself on

the structures as a living being, as opposed to a flat land mass available

to be moulded and made into an exact replica of Rome. Perhaps this is

better, had he not substituted certain Roman elements such as vaults for

the traditional Venetian beamed ceilings, Venice might have lost

something of its character and identity it had maintained for so long.

To further analyse the interrelationships between the buildings which

Sansovino designed or embellished for the Piazzetta, one needs to

understand this complex as a whole and consider how the visual

decorations symbolically link these buildings and their function,

enlightening us as to how the Venetian state functioned and wished to be

seen. We can then interpret these as the result of a brilliantly complex

plan, or the more natural culmination of a response to needs and actions

of a developing society which infused meaning into everything around it.

Integral to this analysis of the Venetian state and its architecture was the

use of thepiano nobile of the library by the patricians to observe the

goings on in the Piazzetta below. Sansovinos upper storey provided a

structure of bays like theatre boxes opposite the Doges Palace, the

balcony of which also would have been lined with noble spectators. From

this elevated position they could watch daily events, public celebrations

and importantly, executions. Johnson remarks that such public


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performances of justice were grand spectacles24 and he makes the useful

observation that the layout of the Piazzetta functioned in a similar way to

that of a theatre space, in terms of its design and visual elements such as

the balconies in which the procurators stood, framed by grand Ionic

columns, these box-like constructions in fact pre-date theatre boxes in

Venice. Johnson also mentions that during the sixteenth century the

Venetian government created one of the greatest public spaces in

Europe,25 as if the the Piazzetta itself were the work of art created by the

state though their main architect. If the Piazzetta is a theatre, then the

festivals and judicial activities below make the citizens of Venice the

actors. The Venetian state then is not only a work of art, but is engaged

in its own particular forms of performance art- those political examples of

justice and festivals. Sansovinos contribution was to create a space for

this performance art of the state.

The urban renovations served to created relationships of power between

architecture of the state. The imposing herms on Zecca characterise the

male form and strength, in Johnsons analysis of the Venetian Mint they

can stand for many things, including the authority of Rome and it is very

likely Sansovino had seen Michelangelos herms on the tomb of Julius II

dating from 150526. Though Johnson recognises they point to Venus who

is synonymous with Venice in Venetian artistic dialogue, he fails to make

24Johnson, 2000, p.445

25Johnson, 2004, p.430

26Johnson, 2004, p.441


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the connection that if the herms, as Rome, point to Venus instead of

simply asserting themselves, then by way of their gesture Venice is being

celebrated through Rome; a bold claim but not an unlikely one, given

Venices prosperity in that decade.

Sansovino succeeded in charging his civic monuments with the chief

virtue of the Republic Justice, in order that they should correspond not

only with each other but with the political ideals of the state. Justice was

depicted in her female form in the entablatures carried by the herms on

the Zecca, the Loggetta and the feminoni of the Library who both frame

and point to her across the Piazzetta in a motif on the Ducal Palace. It is

therefore fitting that Justice was also played out in the middle of all of

these in the Piazzetta when public examples were made of criminals. Just

like a work of art, each structure of the Piazzetta was infused with an

overriding theme which contributed to its myth as the Serenissima.

According to Platos philosophy of the Republic, all art is merely the

representation of the thing it wishes to depict27. The reference to Justice

upon each building was then brilliantly surpassed by the practise of it in

the centre of Piazzetta, turning the Venetian state into divine creators.

It is possible to see that the state was indeed an artful construction, not

only a place of beauty but one where a century of uninterrupted visual

and cultural frameworks integral to the identity of the republic, such as

27Plato, Part X: Theory of Art in The Republic, London, 5

thed., 2007, p.335


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histories and important ideological virtues. These had been assimilated

into every aspect of Venetian culture, building a complex weave of

meaning in such a way that which we might compare this growth to the

process of evolution. Gritti and Sansovinos urban renovations contributed

to Venice as an artificial construct by re-enforcing the myths Venice

wished to create, such as the parallels with Rome and expression of

Justice. However the culminating cleanliness, brilliance and complexity

achieved in Venice speak more of a development in evolutionary maturity.


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Bibliography

Baxandall, Michael. Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy, 2nd

ed, Oxford, 1988

Brown, Patricia Fortini.Art and Life in Renaissance Venice, London, 1997

Brown, Patricia Fortini. Painting and History in Renaissance Venice, Art

History, Vol.7, 1984, pp.216-294

Burckhardt, Jacob and Murray, Peter (ed.). The Architecture of the Italian

Renaissance, 2nd ed., Chicago, 1987

Burckhardt, Jacob, translated by Middlemore, S G C. The Civilisation of

the Renaissance in Italy: an essay, 3rd ed., London, 2004

Conway, Hazel and Roenisch, Rowan. Understanding architecture: an

introduction to architecture and architectural theory, 2nd ed. Oxon, 2005

Chambers, D and Pullman, Brian (ed.). Venice A Documentary History

1450-1630, Toronto, 2001.

Da Mosto, Francesco. Francescos Venice, London, 2007

Delorenzi, Paolo. The Doges Palace, Venice, 2010


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Johnson, Eugene J. Jacopo Sansovino, Giacomo Torelli and the

Theatricality of the Piazzetta in Venice, Journal of the Society of

Architectural Historians, Vol.59, No.4, 2000, pp.436-453

Johnson, Eugene J. Portal of Empire and Wealth: Jacopo Sansovinos

Entrance to the Venetian Mint, The Art Bulletin, Vol. 86, No.3, 2004,

pp.430-458

Howard, Deborah. Jacopo Sansovino: Architecture andPatronage in

Renaissance Venice, New Haven and London, 1975

Howard, Deborah. Venice as a Dolphin: Further Investigations into

Jacopo deBarbaris View,Artibus et Historiae, Veol.18, No.35, 1997,

pp.101-111

Hopkins, Anthony. Architecture and Infirmitas: Doge Andrea Gritti and

the Chancel of San Marco, Journal of the Society of Architectural

Historians, Vol. 57, No. 2, 1998, pp.182-197

Kaplan, Paul H. D. Untitled Review of Patricia Fortini Brown, Venetian

Narrative Painting in the Age of Carpaccio, New Haven and London, in

Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. 43, No. 3, 1990, pp.614-616

Lawrence, D.H. The Complete Poems of DH Lawrence, Hertfordshire, 1994


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Martineau, J and Hope, C (ed.). The Genius of Venice 1500-1600, London,

1983

MacKenney, Richard. Public and Private in Renaissance Venice ,

Renaissance Studies, 1998, Vol.12, No.1, pp.109-130

Mueller, John H. Is Art The Product of Its Age?, Social Forces, Vol. 13,

No. 3, 1935, pp. 367-375

Muir, Edward. Images of Power: Art and Pageantry in Renaissance

Venice,American Historical Review, Vol. 84, No.1, 1979, pp.16-52

Norwich, John Julius.A History of Venice, London, 1983

Plato. The Republic, 5th ed., London, 2007

Tafuri, Manfredo. Interpreting the Renaissance, New Haven and London,

2006

Vasari, Giorgio and Bull, George., Baldick, Robert (ed.). Lives of the

Artists, Middlesex, 1965


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Pictures

Fig.1 Jacopo de Barbaris View of Venice, 1500. Image at:

http://www.tin.it/veniva/venetie/map/map.htm

Fig.2 The Piazzetta, Venice. Image at: www.luirig.altervista.org

Fig.3 Gentile Bellinis Procession of the True Cross in Piazza San Marco,

1496. Image at: http://en.wikipedia.org

Fig.4 The Library of the Piazzetta in Venice. Image at: www.potpourri-

variety.blogspot.com

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Venice Essay 2

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