Artistic Patrimony and Cultural Politics in Early Seicento Venice

Artistic Patrimony and Cultural Politics in Early Seicento Venice

Taryn Marie Zarrillo

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the

requirements for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

2016

ABSTRACT

Artistic Patrimony and Cultural Politics in Early Seicento Venice


In the period following the Cinquecento Renaissance, contemporary seventeenth century

Venetian artists were presented with two enormous challenges. The first was to attempt to

reinterpret their visual tradition within a shifting political climate without declining into

an overt stylistic retrospection. The second was to try and retain a semblance of the

personification of state identity—those qualities that had been established and

distinguished by Venetian art in the Cinquecento —and which were present in the visual

patrimony of paintings and drawings. Carlo Ridolfi, art critic and author of Le

maraviglie dell’Arte (1648) eloquently stated the problem in his biography of Giovanni

Contarino, a student of Titian’s, when he praised the work of the Cinquecento masters as

the epitome of artistic production to the extent that he says, “it is with reason that one

could use as motto the two columns of Hercules with the words: “Ultra quid faciam?" it

is in fact vain to pretend better examples, and rarer beautiful things could be made.” 1

This dissertation considers two parallel issues at work: the stylistic legacy of Cinquecento

Venetian masters and their importance in the work of their Seicento heirs, and the

purposeful dissolution and sale of collections of work by those masters during the

1 Carlo Ridolfi, Le Maraviglie dell’arte, (Milan: Arnoldo Forni Editore, 2002), vol. 2, p. 281.

“con ragione se le potrebbe dirizzare per corpo d’impresa le due Colonne Herculee col Motto:

‘Ultra quid faciam?’ essendo vanità il pretendere documenti migliori esempi più rari e bellezze

più pellegrine.”

seventeenth century. The business activities of art dealers Marco Boschini (1602/5—

1681), Paolo del Sera (1614—1672) and their associates are examined alongside their

perceptions and criticisms of Cinquecento and Seicento artistic production, and the

voracious appetite of English collectors for Venetian pictures in the opening decades of

the seventeenth century is considered. Exploring the situations—political (the artist),

economic (the dealer), and social (the patron)—present in Venice during the early

seventeenth century and their direct relation to the perceived aesthetics of a cultural

legacy, this project provides a reassessment of how established value sets in Venetian art

were considered successful or not within their cultural context, and how those stylistic

evaluations affected artists working in Venice during the early Seicento.

i

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Illustrations iii

Preface xii

Chapter One: What’s the Problem with Seicento Venice? 1

Chapter Two: The Legacy of Visual Neurosis: Seicento Venetian Painters 30

Confront Their Past

1. The Venetian Workshop and its Structure: The Case of the Two 34

San Lorenzos

2. Methodology, Influence, and Production 51

3. The Neurosis Manifest: Domenico Tintoretto 72

Chapter Three: Foreign Agents in the Venetian Picture Market 88

1. Competing For Courtly Favor 93

2. Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, Aletheia Talbot, and William Petty 97

3. Sir Dudley Carleton, Daniel Nijs (Nys) and Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset 101

4. Balthazar Gerbier and George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham 109

5. Aletheia Talbot, Countess Arundel: A Troubling Affair in Venice 116

6. ‘hunting after pictures’: Basil, Viscount Feilding and James, 123

1st Duke of Hamilton

7. Endgame: English Collections and their Venetian Pictures Dispersed 136

ii

Chapter Four: Complementary Activities: Marco Boschini, Paolo de Sera 139

and Their Associates as Merchants, Critics, Collectors

and Painters

1. Dealer, Critic, and Artist: tutto lo stesso 143

2. Boschini’s Dual Roles of Defense and Dispersal 167

Chapter Five: Venice Preserv’d 175

Images 187

Bibliography 310

iii

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

1. Bernardo Strozzi, Vanitas (Old Coquette), circa 1638, oil on canvas, Pushkin

Museum, Moscow

2. Paolo Veronese, Apotheosis of Venice (Triumph of Venice), 1585, oil on canvas,

Maggior Consiglio, Palazzo Ducale, Venice

3. Titian, Woman at her Toilet, circa 1515, oil on canvas, Louvre, Paris

4. Titian, David and Goliath, 1544, oil on panel, Sacristy, Santa Maria della Salute,

Venice

5. Titian, The Sacrifice of Isaac, 1544, oil on panel, Sacristy, Santa Maria della

Salute, Venice

6. Titian, Cain and Abel, 1544, oil on panel, Sacristy, Santa Maria della Salute,

Venice

7. Leandro Bassano, Family Group of a Venetian Procurator before the Madonna

and Child, 1590, oil on canvas, Museo Biblioteca Archivio, Bassano del Grappa

8. Pietro Liberi, Allegory of Time and Truth, mid 1600s, oil on canvas, Semenzato,

Venice

9. Alessandro Varotari, called il Padovanino, Bacchus and Ariadne, after Titian,

1614-1620, oil on canvas, Accademia Carrara, Bergamo

10. Paolo Veronese, Wisdom and Strength, circa 1580, oil on canvas, The Frick

Collection, New York

11. Antonio Zanchi, The Virgin Appears to the Afflicted, 1666, oil on canvas,

stairwell (left), Scuola Grande di San Rocco, Venice

12. Leandro Bassano, Berenice, circa 1600, oil on canvas, Martini Collection,

Ca’Rezzonico, Venice

13. Palma il Giovane, Venice Crowned by Victory, 1584, oil on canvas, Maggior

Consiglio, Palazzo Ducale, Venice

14. Palma il Giovane, Heraclius takes the Cross to Jerusalem, 1590, oil on canvas,

San Giovanni Elemosinario, Venice

iv

15. Domenico Tintoretto, Portrait of a Gentleman, 1586, oil on canvas,

Gëmaldegalerie Alte Meister, Kassel

16. Antonio Vassilacchi, called l’Aliense, Supper at Emmaus, 1618, oil on canvas,

San Pietro di Castello, Venice

17. Paolo Veronese, Feast in the House of Levi (detail), 1573, oil on canvas,

Accademia, Venice

18. Jacopo Tintoretto, Last Supper, circa 1570, oil on canvas, San Polo, Venice

19. Titian, Martyrdom of San Lorenzo, 1559, oil on canvas, Gesuiti (Crociferi),

Venice

20. Titian, Martyrdom of San Lorenzo, 1564-1567, oil on canvas, El Escorial, Spain

21. Titian, Martyrdom of San Lorenzo: detail of putti, 1564-1567, oil on canvas,

El Escorial, Spain

22. Titian, Martyrdom of San Lorenzo: detail of conservation xray, 1564-1567

El Escorial, Spain

23. Titian, Martyrdom of San Lorenzo: detail of legs, 1564-1567, oil on canvas

El Escorial, Spain

24. Titian, Martyrdom of San Lorenzo: detail of arch, 1564-1567, oil on canvas

El Escorial, Spain

25. Jacopo Bellini, St. John the Baptist Preaching, Model Book, circa 1450,

leadpoint on parchment, Louvre, Paris

26. Jacopo Tintoretto, Study for the Allegory of Fortune (Felicita), 1564, black chalk

on white paper, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

27. Jacopo Tintoretto, Allegory of Fortune (Felicita), 1564, oil on canvas, Sala

dell’Albergo, Scuola Grande di San Rocco, Venice

28. Jacopo Tintoretto, Study for Mars, Venus, and Vulcan, circa 1551, black chalk,

pen, brown ink, color washed and heightened with white chalk on blue paper,

Staatliche Museum, Berlin

29. Jacopo Tintoretto, Mars and Venus Surprised by Vulcan, circa 1555, oil on

canvas, Alte Pinakothek, Munich

v

30. Odoardo Fialetti, Artists in their Studio, circa 1610, engraving, Il vero modo et

ordine per dissegnar tutte le parti et membra del corpo humano

31. Palma il Giovane, Madonna and Child, 1608, engraving, Il vero modo et ordine

per dissegnar tutte le parti et membra del corpo humano

32. Palma il Giovane, Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery, 1608, engraving, Il

vero modo et ordine per dissegnar tutte le parti et membra del corpo humano

33. Odoardo Fialetti, Cross Section of Head, 1608, engraving, Il vero modo et ordine


34. Odoardo Fialetti, Feet, 1608, engraving, Il vero modo et ordine per dissegnar

tutte le parti et membra del corpo humano

35. Odoardo Fialetti, Mouths, 1608, engraving, Il vero modo et ordine per dissegnar


36. Giacomo Franco, Feste o Balli, 1610, engraving, Habiti d’huomini et donne

Venetiane

37. Giacomo Franco, Torsos, 1611, engraving, De Excellentia et Nobilitate

Delineationis Libri Duo

38. Giacomo Franco 1611, Male Heads, engraving, De Excellentia et Nobilitate


39. Palma il Giovane, Frontispiece, 1611, engraving, De Excellentia et Nobilitate


40. Michelangelo, Dusk and Dawn, 1524-153, marble, Medici Chapel, San Lorenzo,

Florence

41. Domenico Tintoretto, Portrait of Procurator, circa 1595, oil on canvas, The Frick


42. Jacopo Tintoretto, Baptism of Christ, circa 1589, oil on canvas, San Silvestro,

Venice

43. Domenico Tintoretto, Baptism of Christ, circa 1590-1600, oil on canvas, San

Pietro Martire, Murano, Venice

44. Domenico Tintoretto, Baptism of Christ, circa 1595, oil on canvas, Cleveland

Museum of Art

vi

45. Jacopo and Domenico Tintoretto, The Flagellation of Christ, 1590, oil on canvas,

Kunsthistorisches, Vienna

46. Domenico Tintoretto, Adoration of the Magi, circa 1595, oil on canvas, San

Trovaso, Venice

47. Workshop of Jacopo Tintoretto, Two Studies of a Figure Crawling, 1533-1594,

charcoal on blue paper, Department of Prints and Drawings, British Museum,

London

48. Jacopo Tintoretto, Study of Michelangelo’s ‘Day’, 1550, graphite on paper,

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

49. Workshop of Domenico Tintoretto, Miracle of the Dying Slave, circa 1600-1610,

oil and wash on paper, Department of Prints and Drawings, British Museum,

London



London



London



London



London

54. Jacopo Tintoretto, Miracle of the Dying Slave, 1548, oil on canvas, Accademia,

Venice

55. Workshop of Domenico Tintoretto, Reclining Nude, circa 1600-1610, oil and

wash on paper, Department of Prints and Drawings, British Museum, London





vii







61. Workshop of Domenico Tintoretto, St Mark Rescuing a Saracen from Shipwreck,

circa 1600-1610, oil and wash on paper, Department of Prints and Drawings,

British Museum, London

62. Workshop of Domenico Tintoretto St Mark Rescuing a Saracen from Shipwreck,



63. Workshop of Domenico Tintoretto, Temptation of St Anthony, circa 1600-1610,


London



London



London



London



London



London



London

viii

70. Domenico Tintoretto, Temptation of St Anthony, 17th

century, oil on canvas,

location unknown



location unknown

72. Domenico Tintoretto, Reclining Nude, late 16th

century, charcoal on paper,


73. Workshop of Domenic Tintoretto, Mary Magdalene, circa 1600-1610, oil and


74. Paolo Veronese, Mars and Venus, 1570s, oil on canvas, Metropolitan Museum of

Art, New York



76. Paolo Veronese, The Choice between Virtue and Vice, circa 1565, oil on canvas,

The Frick Collection, New York

77. Paolo Veronese, Hermes, Herse and Aglauros, after 1576, oil on canvas, The

Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, UK

78. Paolo Veronese, Scorn from Allegories of Love, circa 1575, oil on canvas,

National Gallery, London

79. Paolo Veronese, Unfaithfulness from Allegories of Love, circa 1575, oil on

canvas, National Gallery, London

80. Paolo Veronese, Respect from Allegories of Love, circa 1575, oil on canvas,


81. Paolo Veronese, Happy Union from Allegories of Love, circa 1575, oil on canvas,


82. Titian, Portrait of Jacopo Strada, 1567-1568, oil on canvas, Kunsthistorisches,

Vienna

83. Unknown Artist, Portrait of Sir Henry Wotton, date unknown, oil on canvas,

National Portrait Gallery, London

84. Palma il Giovane, Prometheus Chained to the Caucasus, circa 1570-1608, oil on

canvas, Royal Collection Trust, UK

ix

85. Isaac Oliver, Portrait of Henry, Prince of Wales, circa 1610-1612, oil on canvas,


86. Peter Paul Rubens, Portrait of Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, 1629, oil on

canvas, National Portrait Gallery, London

87. Peter Paul Rubens, Portrait of Aletheia Talbot, Countess of Arundel with Sir

Dudley Carleton, 1620, oil on canvas, Alte Pinakothek, Munich

88. Sebastiano del Piombo, Portrait of Ferry Carondelet and his Secretaries,

1510-1512, oil on panel, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

89. Michiel Jansz. van Mierevelt , Dudley Carleton, Viscount Dorchester, circa 1620,

oil on panel, National Portrait Gallery, London

90. After John Hoskins, Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset, circa 1625-1630, oil on panel,


91. Odoardo Fialetti, Daniel Nijs, 1615, engraving, La pittura trionfante

92. Jacopo Bassano, Beheading of St John the Baptist, circa 1550, oil on canvas,

National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen

93. Lodewijk Toeput, il Pozzoserrato, Pleasure Garden with Maze, circa 1579-1584,

oil on canvas, Royal Collection Trust, Hampton Court Palace

94. Peter Paul Rubens, Portrait of George Villiers, First Duke of Buckingham

circa 1625, oil on canvas, Palazzo Pitti, Florence

95. Paulus Pontius (Paulus Du Pont), after Sir Anthony van Dyck, Sir Balthazar

Gerbier, 1634, line engraving, National Portrait Gallery, London

96. Titian, Ecce Homo, 1543, oil on canvas, Kunsthistorisches, Vienna

97. Jacopo Tintoretto, Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery, 1547, oil on canvas,

Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden

98. Daniel Mytens , Aletheia, Countess of Arundel, circa 1618, oil on canvas,


99. Odoardo Fialetti, Doge Leonard Donato Giving Audience to Sir Henry Wotton,

1600-1620, oil on canvas, Royal Collection Trust, Hampton Court Palace

x

100. Daniel Mytens, James Hamilton, 1st Duke of Hamilton, 1629, oil on canvas,

National Gallery, Scotland

101. Wenceslas Hollar, Basil Feilding, Earl of Denbigh, mid 17th

century, engraving,

Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, UK

102. Tiberio Tinelli, Portrait of Lodovico Widmann, 1637, oil on canvas, National

Gallery, Washington, D.C.

103. Giorgione, Three Philosophers, 1509, oil on canvas, Kunsthistorisches, Vienna

104. Giovanni Bellini, Young Woman Holding a Mirror, 1515, oil on canvas,


105. Jacopo Tintoretto, Susanna and the Elders, circa 1555, oil on canvas,


106. Palma il Giovane, Bartolomeo della Nave, 1591-1592, oil on canvas, Birmingham

Museum, UK

107. Titian, Flaying of Marsyas, circa 1575, oil on canvas, National Museum,

Kroměňž

108. Titian, Concert Champêtre, 1509, oil on canvas, Louvre, Paris

109. Pietro della Vecchia, Portrait of a Gentleman, faked Giorgione, circa 1640,

oil on canvas, Palazzo Pitti, Florence

110. Niccolo Renieri, Self Portrait, 1623-1624, oil on canvas, Fogg Art Museum,

Cambridge, MA

111. Pietro Bellotto, Ritratto di Marco Boschini, circa 1660, engraving, La Carta del

Navegar Pitoresco

112. Paolo Veronese, Christ and the Centurion, 1570, oil on canvas, Prado, Madrid

113. Marco Boschini, Preaching of St Francis Xavier, circa 1650, engraving after

Pietro Liberi, engraving, Correr Museum, Venice

114. Marco Boschini, Visita del Doge alla Chiesa Santa Maria della Salute, 1644,

engraving, Correr Museum, Venice

115. Marco Boschini, La Generosità, engraving after Niccolò Renieri, circa 1660,

engraving, La Carta del Navegar Pitoresco

xi

116. Marco Boschini, L’Arte maschera da vecchia la Moda, engraving after Pietro

della Vecchia, circa 1660, engraving, La Carta del Navegar Pitoresco

117. Marco Boschini, Un Amorino sveglia la Virtu addormentata, engraving after

Dario Varotari, circa 1660, engraving, La Carta del Navegar Pitoresco

118. Damiano Mazza, The Rape of Ganymede, circa 1575, oil on canvas, National

Gallery, London

119. Alessandro Varotari, il Padovanino, The Rape of Europa, 1635-1645, oil on

canvas, Fondazione Cariplo, Milan

120. Girolamo Forabosco, David with the Head of Goliath, circa 1670, oil on canvas,

Liechtenstein Collection, Vaduz-Vienna

121. Pietro della Vecchia, Socrates and Two Students, 17th


Prado, Madrid

122. Gregorio Lazzarini, Orpheus and the Bacchantes, circa 1710, oil on canvas,


123. Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, The Finding of Moses, 1730s, oil on canvas, Scottish

National Gallery, Edinburgh

xii

PREFACE

This dissertation is the result of work begun during a MA course at the Courtauld

Institute of Art, London in 2001, and the many questions which were raised but left

unanswered. I feel very fortunate that the city of Venice and her art and history have

been my topic; it was a happy circumstance that I did not plan and it has left me with a

life-long passion. Since my first year at Columbia I have eagerly awaited the moment the

semester ended and I could board a plane to return to once again. My full time residence

there was supported by a Gladys Krieble Delmas Grant in Venetian Studies, two

Dissertation Research Grants from the Department of Art History and Archaeology at

Columbia University, and two Louise Fitz-Randolph Grants for Graduate Research from

the Department of Art History at Mount Holyoke College, and for that I am grateful.

There are many individuals I would like to thank for their support and friendship

through this process. At Columbia: Jessica Maratsos, for her enthusiasm peering into

restricted Venetian palazzi; Julia Seimon, for her willingness to hijack a gondola;

Alessandra di Croce, for dragging me through Umbria and welcoming me into her

Roman family; and Lynn Catterson, who gave me her couch in Florence and was always

willing to edit. Along with being valued colleagues and intrepid Italian adventurers, they

are dear friends.

For their interest in my subject, numerous discussions, countless questions

answered and peer support (in no particular order): Andaleeb Banta, Christina Anderson,

Catherine Whistler, Andrea Bayer, Philip Sohm, Colin Murray, Liz Carrol, Seung Jung

Kim, Simon Schama, Caroline Bruzelius, Francesco Benelli, Anthony Grafton, Linda

xiii

Carroll, Stefania Mason, Tom Worthen, and my advisor, David Rosand. I am sorry he is

not here to read the final version; I miss his grumpy edits of my over-enthusiastic use of

commas, and the fond look in his eye at the mention of Palma il Giovane. I am grateful

to my defense committee for seeing me through in his absence; Stephen Murray, Keith

Moxey, Andrea Bayer, Philip Sohm and my sponsor, Diane Bodart.

In Venice, for welcoming me with open arms and transforming the city into my

second home, teaching me to speak (and swear), drink, and drive a boat like a Venetian,

and declaring in the end I had become one of them: Rosella and Marino Zorzi, in whose

fabulous palazzo I lived for two years, Eros and Antonella Turchi, Franco Filipi; Antonio,

Alberto, Lupo and Flavio at Milan Bar, and my cari amici, Marco Ceresa, Simone Guseo,

Luigi Ricci, and Meital Shai. I treasure our late night boating excursions through the

city.

Stateside, for being completely disassociated from anything to do with art history

and therefore keeping me sane and planted in the real world—while simultaneously never

failing to ask if I was done yet: Jeffrey Philp, Alison Hanstead, Sandra and Bob Rivollier,

and to Tena and Emma Murphy for loving me all the time.

Finally, I would like to thank my parents Mark and Cheryl, and my sister Adriana

for their love and encouragement in all the choices I have made, no matter how bizarre.

Nathan Sawyer, with his generosity, unflagging support and calm in the eye of the storm

married me anyway, despite the fact I am an art historian. He is a brave man, and the

love of my life.

xiv

But there is only one individual to whom this dissertation is dedicated; who sat

with me for every keystroke, who listened to every rewrite, who has been by my side

throughout and always with a sunny disposition, asking only for a scratch behind the ears.

This one is for you, Asta.

1

CHAPTER 1: What’s the problem with Seicento Venice?

The Publick Stock’s a Beggar, one Venetian

Trusts not another; Look to their Stores

Of general safety; Empty Magazines,

A tatter’d Fleet, a murmuring unpaid Army,

Bankrupt Nobility, a harrast Commonalty,

A Factious, giddy, and divided Senate,

Is all the Strength of Venice.1

Bernardo Strozzi’s painting of Vanitas (fig. 1) is an apt visual metaphor for the

shifting fortunes of Venice at the opening of the seventeenth century.2 Presented with an

1 Thomas Otway, Venice Preserv’d, or A Plot discover’d, (London, 1682), p. 20. Text available

online from Project Gutenberg. Otway (1652-1685) was an English dramatist best known for his

works, The Orphan (1680) and Venice Preserv’d (1682). The story is loosely based on the actual

Spanish Conspiracy of 1618, in which the Spanish Ambassador to Venice, Alfonso de la

Cueva,1st Marquis of Bedmar conspired (unproven but most likely true) with Pedro Téllez-Girón,

3rd Duke of Osuna and Viceroy of Naples, to invade Venice and take over the Senate. Otway

used the Abbé de Saint-Real’s novel, Conjuration des Espagnols contre la Venise en 1618 (1674)

as the source for his play. The work was an instant success and Otway rose to fame; however, his

love affair with his leading lady Elizabeth Barry (also the mistress of John Wilmot, 2nd

Earl of

Rochester, who himself referenced the play on his deathbed) led to his early demise and he died

penniless, apparently choking on a piece of bread. Venice Preserv’d remained popular well into

the 19th

century; in 1865 John Wilkes Booth famously stated it was the only play he would

continue to perform in, which was later considered to be a veiled reference to the plot to

assassinate Lincoln. See Michael Kauffman, American Brutus: John Wilkes Booth and the

Lincoln Conspiracies, (New York: Random House, 2004), p. 207. For the history of the Spanish

Conspiracy, see Horatio Brown, Studies in the History of Venice, (London: J. Murray, 1907), pp.

245-295; John Julius Norwich, A History of Venice, (London: Penguin, 1983), pp. 522-525;

Richard MacKenney, “A Plot Discover’d? Myth, Legend, and the “Spanish’ Conspiracy against

Venice in 1618,” in Venice Reconsidered, ed. John Martin, (Baltimore: John Hopkins University

Press, 2000), pp.185-216.

2 It goes without saying that the thousand year history of the Venetian Republic is complex and

multifaceted. For our purposes here and the sake of summary, it is generally accepted that the

1509 defeat of the Venetians at Agnadello by the League of Cambrai was the turning point in

Venetian history from which they never fully recovered. See Felix Gilbert, “Venice in the Crisis

of the League of Cambrai,” Renaissance Venice, ed. J.R.Hale, (London: Faber and Faber, 1973).

See also Edward Muir’s essay, “Was There Republicanism in the Renaissance Republics? Venice

After Agnadello,” and Elizabeth Gleason’s counter response “Confronting New Realities: Venice

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfonso_de_la_Cueva,_1st_Marquis_of_Bedmar

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfonso_de_la_Cueva,_1st_Marquis_of_Bedmar

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_T%C3%A9llez-Gir%C3%B3n,_3rd_Duke_of_Osuna

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_T%C3%A9llez-Gir%C3%B3n,_3rd_Duke_of_Osuna

2

old coquette examining her reflection within a boudoir, we watch as her maids drape her

in fine silk ribbons, lace, flowers and exotic feathers. The gaudy finery cannot mask the

toil taken by the passage of time. An ample but wrinkled bosom spills over her

décolletage as she considers her own dark piercing gaze, pausing the action of her rising

hand that holds a flower in full bloom. Her own bloom and the flush of youth are long

gone. The knuckles are large, the neck taunt and strong, the shoulders straight. This is no

crone teetering on the edge of death; rather it is a woman who has seen life. When he

painted her in 1638, this is the Venice that Strozzi would have arrived to—a city where

political, economic and territorial erosion had taken root decades before.3 She is not

and the Peace of Bologna, 1530,” both in Venice Reconsidered, ed. John Martin, (Baltimore:

Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), pp. 137-167 and pp. 168-184 respectively. Over the

course of the seventeenth century Venice was under Papal Interdict (1606-1607), dealt with

espionage from abroad-the Spanish Conspiracy of 1618-and the Foscarini Affair in the 1620s,

assassination attempts and strife within the Council of Ten between Renier Zen and Giorgio

Corner, plague in 1630-1631, the Cretan War from 1645-1669, massive debt, and an overall

decline in territory and commercial success. For an entertaining and succinct summary, John

Julius Norwich, A History of Venice, (London: Penguin, 1982), pp. 449-575; for specifics along

with a discussion of the vecchia vs. giovane in the noble class, Gaetano Cozzi, Venezia barocca:

Conflitti di uomini e idée nella crisi del Seicento veneziano, (Venezia: Cardo, 1995); Gaetano

Cozzi, Michael Knapton, and Giovanni Scarabello, La Repubblica di Venezia nell’eta moderna:

dal 1517 alla fine della Repubblica, (Turin: Utet, 1992).

3 Bernardo Strozzi (1581-1644) was a native of Genoa. About 1597 Strozzi became a Capuchin

friar. He was allowed to leave the order to support his ailing mother through the sale of his

paintings after his father’s death in 1608. Upon his mother’s death around 1630 he was pressured

to return to his monastery; he declined and was briefly imprisoned. By 1631 he had fled Genoa

and settled in Venice where he became one of the most prolific painters in the Republic,

producing devotional works and images for private consumption as well as State commissions.

As a non-native, Strozzi faced potential difficulties with the Painters’ Guild, which typically

restricted the availability of work for outsiders—the plague of 1630 left a shortage of labour and

Strozzi therefore found himself with a wealth of commissions. See Andaleeb Banta, Bernardo

Strozzi: Defining An Artistic Identity in Early Seventeenth Century Genoa, (PhD Dissertation,

New York University, 2007); Luisa Mortari, Bernardo Strozzi, (Rome: De Luca, 1995); Walters

Art Gallery, Baltimore, Bernardo Strozzi : master painter of the Italian Baroque (1581/2-1644),

ed. Joaneath Spicer, (Sept. 10-Nov. 26, 1995); Camillo Manzitti, Bernardo Strozzi, (New York:

Allemandi, 2013).

3

Veronese’s triumphant Venice high above the chamber floor of the Maggior Consiglio,

befuddling Thomas Coryat with her allusion to the Virgin Mary (fig. 2).4 She is not a

Venus of Bellini or Titian at her toilet, secure in her beauty and position (fig. 3). This is

‘La Serenissima Repubblica’ on the downward slide from her former glory, when the grip

of decline had taken hold, and the myth of Venice was no longer as convincing as it once

was.5 There is no disguise or visual disambiguation on display. This woman, like Venice,

had a taste for life, and had lived to the fullest.

Similar to Strozzi’s aging coquette, by the early decades of the seventeenth

century the Republic of Venice was fading in her glory though still bedecked in her

4 Thomas Coryat, Coryat’s Crudities: Hastily gobled up in Five Moneth's Travels, [1611]

(Glasgow: MacLehose and Sons, 1905), p. 341. Coryat describes the ceiling of the Maggior

Consiglio and its paintings, including both the central panel by Veronese and the pendant panel

by Palma il Giovane, “All that which is comprehended within those borders is the curiousest

painting that ever I saw done with such peerelesse singularity and quintessence of arte, that were

Apelles alive I thinke it is impossible for him to excel it. In the first of these borders…is painted

the picture of the Virgin Mary in marveilous rich ornaments, with an Angell crowning of her. In

the next border, which is square and made in the very middle of the roofe, is represented the Duke

and his Ducal majesty, accompanied with the greatest Senators and Patricians, in their red damask

long-sleeved gownes, lined with rich ermins. A little above the Duke is painted the Virgin Mary

againe with a crowne on her head, attended with two Angells; shee feedes the winged Lyon with

a branch of the Olive tree, by which is signified peace.” Literature on the conflation of

Venice/Virgin Mary is extensive. See David Rosand, “Venezia figurate: The Iconography of a

Myth,” Interpretazioni veneziane: Studi di storia dell’arte in onore di Michelangelo Muraro,

(Venice, 1984), pp. 177-196 for fullest explanation.

5 A ground breaking study that has laid out the terms by which the “myth of Venice” is still

discussed: Gina Fasoli, “Nascita di un mito,” Studi storici in onore di Gioacchino Volpe,

(Florence, 1958), pp. 445-479. See also Margaret King, Venetian Humanism in an Age of

Patrician Dominance, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986); Donald Queller, The

Venetian Patriciate: Reality Versus Myth, (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1986); Ernst

Cassirer, The Myth of the State, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1946); Myron Gilmore,

“Myth and Reality in Venetian Political Theory,” Renaissance Venice, ed. J.R. Hale, (London:

Faber and Faber, 1973), pp. 431-444, and William Bouwsma, Venice and the Defense of

Republican Liberty, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968).

4

finery. Often viewed as an ideal city, she was surrounded by powerful monarchies and

her survival attributed to the perfection of her government. That concept of perfection

was embodied by the myth of Venice, and it was played out again and again by leading

artists on the walls of her churches and government buildings as a constant reminder,

despite her shifting fortunes.

Published in Latin in 1543, and then again in Italian and French in 1544, Gasparo

Contarini gave the myth definitive explanation in his De Magistratibus et Republica

Venetorum.6 Describing the interlocking system of checks and balances between

continually proliferating committees and the shifting of important cabinet assignments as

a way to combat tyranny, Contarini wrote of the noble class as objective, wise, patriotic

and self-sacrificing. To him, the physical city seemed “framed rather by the hands of the

immortal gods, than in any way by the art, industry, or invention of men.”7 Yet it was the

art and the inventions of men that gave expression to the higher ideals espoused by

Contarini, drawing travelers from far afield to see the miracle of the city that floated on

water. Travelling for pleasure was an emerging concept, and a new visitor began

appearing in Seicento Venice—the foreign gentleman of quality arriving to cultivate his

6 See Felix Gilbert, “The Date of the Composition of Contarini’s and Giannotti’s Books on

Venice,” Studies in the Renaissance, 14, (1967), pp. 172-184; Elizabeth Gleason, “Reading

between the Lines of Gasparo Contarini’s Treatise of the Venetian State,” Historical

Reflections/Réflexions Historiques, 15, (1988), pp. 251-270, for further information on Contarini;

for English translation see David MacPherson, “Lewkenor’s Venice and It’s Sources,”

Renaissance Quarterly, 41, (1988), pp. 459-466. For complete English translation see Lewes

Lewkenor, The Commonwealth and Government of Venice, (London, 1599), full text available

online.

7 Quotation in David Rosand, Myths of Venice: The Figuration of a State, (Chapel Hill:

University of North Carolina Press, 2001), p.7

5

education. Venice, with her splendor, cosmopolitanism, her pageantry and beauty, was

quickly becoming a favorite destination for the purveying of delights both innocent and

corrupt.

Furthering the dispersal of the Venice myth was Lewis Lewkenor’s (1556—1626)

English edition of Contarini, published as the Commonwealth and Government of Venice

in 1599. Lewkenor’s book did not simply translate Contarini however; it also included

excerpts from five other books on Venice and included an outline of the lives of the

Doges. These five additional sources came from a diverse group of authors: a Florentine,

Donato Giannotti; a Venetian, Bernardo Giustiniani; a German, Sebastian Muenster; and

finally Francesco Sansovino, son of the well known Venetian architect, Jacopo

Sansovino.8 Together these selections covered a variety of topics beyond the political

and historical organization of the state, including; geography, women’s fashion, the arts,

prostitution, marriage customs, and sports, alongside lists of churches, hospitals and

population figures. The end result was ostensibly a tourist guidebook to the city.

Lewkenor never actually traveled to Venice however; his perception and

adulation of the city were not marred by personal experiences or idiosyncrasies, and so

Contarini’s Myth of Venice was perpetuated in an unadulterated state. Thomas Coryat

(c. 1577—1617) on the other hand, was one of the many tourists that did stop in the city

on the course of his travels, staying for six weeks. His Coryat's Crudities: Hastily gobled

up in Five Moneth's Travels, published in 1611 gave a frank and often entertaining

account of his time in the city. His descriptions vacillate from unabashed praise and

8 For an outline of each of Lewkenor’s sources see David McPherson, “Lewkenor’s Venice and

Its Sources,” Renaissance Quarterly, 41, (1988), pp. 462-465.

6

wonder: “I will descend to the description of this thrise worthie citie: the fairest Lady,

yea the richest Paragon and the Queene of Christendome. Such is the rarenesse of the

situation of Venice, that it doth amaze and drive into admiration all strangers that upon

their first arrivall behold the same” to outrage at the gondolier’s audacity, “if the

passenger commandeth them to carry him to any place where his serious and urgent

business lies, which he cannot but follow without some prejudice unto him, these

imperious miscreants will either strive to carry him away, maugre9 his hart, to some

irreligious place whether he would not goe, or at the least tempt him with their diabolical

perswasions.”10

He was not remiss in his distrust; besides the miscreant gondoliers the streets

were full of footloose adventurers, who finding no employment as seamen or in the army

tended to join up with small bands of bravi willing to attach themselves to any potential

patron. They spoke the language, understood the customs and could provide protection,

entertainment, and anything else that was desired. By the outset of the seventeenth

century, the principal European states had firmly established their presence in Venice in

the form of embassies, banks, and trading agencies. It was inevitable that the stability of

Venetian government, rooted in her longstanding myth and underscored by a superb

communications and intelligence system, would foster an international clearinghouse for

information and opportunity.

9 Maugre: in spite of (prep), ill will (noun), also: shame, dishonor, reproach. OED online.

10

Thomas Coryat, Coryat’s Crudities: Hastily gobled up in Five Moneth's Travels, [1611]

(Glasgow: MacLehose and Sons, 1905), see p. 302-303, Coryat also states “she [Venice] gave me

most loving and kind entertainment for the space of six weeks”

7

Throughout the seventeenth century it would be the English who would continue

to laud the virtues of Venice and espouse the model of her government, becoming avid

collectors of her paintings that often visually detailed the ideals promoted in the

published works they also read. The myth of Venice was an accumulation of historical

explanation and contingent propaganda, and it was reiterated across the pictorial forum of

the city. The prevailing vision was consistent and persuasive, transmitted through

guidebooks and histories of the sixteenth century like Contarini, Lewkenor, Coryat and

the others that would follow.11

Venice presented itself as a city founded on freedom and

never subjected to foreign domination; a civic-minded patriciate that was a wise guardian

of the common good; a pious and respectful yet independent society; and a commercially

successful economy with a harmonious, tolerant and loyal populace upholding a system

of fair justice.12

11

Examples of other travel guides and logs: Fynes Moryson, Itinerary Containing his Ten Yeeres

Travell, (London, 1617); William Lithgow, The Totall Discourse, of the Rare Adventures, and

Painfull Peregrinations of Long Nineteene Yeares Travayles, from Scotland, to the Most Famous

Kingdomes in Europe, Asia, and Africa, (London, 1632); Ed., Henry Ellis, The Pylgrymage of Sir

Richard Guylforde to the Holy Land, A.D 1506, The Camden Society, 51, (London, 1851);

Thomas Crowne, Travels of Thomas Lord Howard, London, 1637, (Amsterdam & New York,

1971); B de Monconys, Journal de voyages, (Lyon, 1666) as a few examples of English and

foreign travelers documenting Venice.

12

A massive and comprehensive review of the ways in which Venice generated its own myth,

along with how these creative constructs have set the terms for modern historians is provided by

James S. Grubb, “When Myths Lose Power: Four Decades of Venetian Historiography,” The

Journal of Modern History, 58, (1986), pp. 43-94. Further historical discussions of the Myth of

Venice can be found in: Gina Fasoli, “Nascita di un mito,” Studi storici in onore di Gioacchino

Volpe, (Florence, 1958), pp. 445-479; Franco Gaeta, “Alcune considerazioni sul mito di

Venezia,” Biliothèque d’humanisme et Renaissance, 23, (1961), pp. 58-75; David Robey and

John Easton Law, “The Venetian Myth and the ‘De Republica Veneta’ of Pier Paolo Vergerio,”

Rinascimento, 15, (1975), pp. 3-59; Edward Muir, Civic Ritual in Renaissance Venice,

(Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1981), pp. 13-61; and Franco Gaeta, “L’idea di Venezia,”

8

While all of these noble aspects coalesced to make Venice the “La Serenissima”

that it became within the annals of history, the reality encountered by new arrivals to the

city was closer to Thomas Otway’s unflattering description at the opening of this chapter.

In the early seventeenth century, the forces which held together the fabric of the myth

began to show their fray. The truth of Venice lay in her contradictions; for the myth there

was the anti-myth, where there was harmony there was tyranny, oppression and

inconsistency, where there was nobility and piousness, there was avarice, licentiousness

and deceit. The myth delivered the promise of what Strozzi’s coquette had once been;

the reality retained only the vestiges. As James Grubb states in his comprehensive

historiography on the subject, “as myth became exemplar it inevitably detached from

circumstances and intentions of its formulation, achieved autonomy as a model distinct

from praxis, and became illustrative of eternal verities. Since exemplary models cannot

easily admit change, the Venetian myth at the very moment of its elaboration was

diverging from the Venetian experience.”13

Storia della cultura veneta, ed. Girolamo Arnaldi and Manlio Stocchi, III, 3, (Vicenza, 1982), pp.

565-641.

13 James S. Grubb, “When Myths Lose Power: Four Decades of Venetian Historiography,” The

Journal of Modern History, 58, (1986) p.45 for a summary. For further examination of the anti-

myth, see: Camillo Manfroni, “Gli studi storici in Venezia dal Romanin ad oggi,” Nuovo archivio

Veneto, 16, (1908), pp. 352-354; Gianfranco Torcellan, “Un problema aperto politica e cultura

nella Venezia del ‘700,” Studi veneziani, 8, (1966), pp. 493-513; for corrupt political conduct see

Donald Queller and Frances Swietek, “The Myth of the Venetian Patriciate Electoral Corruption

in Medieval Venice,” Two Studies on Venetian Government, (Geneva, 1977); for fraud and

constitutional abuse see Robert Finlay, Politics in Renaissance Venice, (New Brunswick: Rutgers

University Press, 1980); and for class violence see Guido Ruggiero, Violence in Early

Renaissance Venice, (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1980).

9

In the same way, our 21st century notion of seventeenth century Venice and its

artistic production is still caught between what we have been led to expect to see and

what we find in its place. We make the assumption that as inheritors of the Venetian

High Renaissance, the early seventeenth century artists who followed some of the most

creative minds ever born within her boundaries would naturally aspire to even greater

heights. But like the foreign gentleman of quality, we seem to find ourselves surrounded

by bravi instead. And yet, separated by time, these visual half-truths do not have to be

construed as negative; they did present themselves as reality and were deliberately

conceived self-representations that were expressed as an artistic incarnation of a political

ideal at the time.14

As observers we have only to contextualize these ideas within their

historical canon, balancing the myth against reality, and reconsider why what we perceive

to be a derogatory expression of style in the early Seicento was instead welcomed by

contemporaries as appropriate and acceptable. In short, Venetian art produced in the

opening decades of the Seicento simply needs to be read within the context of the

forces—artist, dealer, and patron—that incited its creation.

In the period following the Cinquecento Renaissance, contemporary seventeenth

century Venetian artists were presented with two enormous challenges. The first was to

attempt to reinterpret their visual tradition within the shifting political climate without

declining into a stagnation of stylistic retrospection. The second was to try and retain a

semblance of that earlier personification of state identity—those qualities that had so

distinguished Venetian art in the Cinquecento—and which were present in the visual

14

David Rosand, Myths of Venice: The Figuration of a State, (Chapel Hill: University of North

Carolina Press, 2001), p.4.

10

patrimony of paintings and drawings. Carlo Ridolfi, art critic and author of Le

maraviglie dell’Arte published in 1648, eloquently states the problem in his biography of

Giovanni Contarino, a student of Titian’s, when he praises the work of the Cinquecento

masters as the epitome of artistic production to the extent that he says, “it is with reason

that one could use as motto the two columns of Hercules with the words: “Ultra quid

faciam?” it is in fact vain to pretend better examples, and rarer beautiful things could be

made.” 15

His implication was that to surpass such a degree of perfection (established in

the Cinquecento) was an impossible task; articulating the precise dilemma confronting

contemporary artists. My dissertation examines the production methodology of paintings

created by the generation of workshop students in the early decades of the 1600s; the

appeal of those paintings on the market, particularly the foreign market of the teens and

1620s; and then the codification of that generation by critics like Marco Boschini in the

latter half of the century.

Seemingly aware of the value of their visual patrimony as more than just a

commodity, Seicento artists who were members of the Painter’s Guild did exercise what

influence in government they had in an attempt to protect what they considered their

artistic inheritance.16

An example of this occurred in 1656, when the contents of the

15

Carlo Ridolfi, Le Maraviglie dell’arte, (Milan: Arnoldo Forni Editore, 2002), vol. 2, p. 281.

“con ragione se le potrebbe dirizzare per corpo d’impresa le due Colonne Herculee col Motto:

‘Ultra quid faciam?’ essendo vanità il pretendere documenti migliori esempi più rari e bellezze

più pellegrine.”

16

See Flaminio Corner’s entries on the Chiesa di Santo Spirito in Isola pp. 493-497 and Chiesa

Santa Maria della Salute pp. 452-457 in Notizie Storiche delle Chiese e Monasteri di Venezia e di

Torcello, (Padua, 1758: Reprint 1990), Jennifer Fletcher, “Marco Boschini and Paolo del Sera:

11

suppressed church of Santo Spirito in Isola were initially seized by the Venetian state to

fund the ongoing war in Candia against the Turkish siege.17

Dismayed by the prospect of

important works by Titian (figs. 4-6) and Salviati leaving Venice—among other

pictures—the Painter’s Guild petitioned the Senate to retain the paintings and decorative

objects and install them in the church of Santa Maria della Salute then under

construction, thus demonstrating an awareness of the visual patrimony that would be lost

if the sale were to take place and the works left the city. This small example is pertinent

because it illustrates the importance and esteem to which Cinquecento painting was

already held by the mid-Seicento, along with the sense of civic pride—and the desire to

hold onto it—already felt a generation later.

My dissertation, Cultural Politics and Artistic Patrimony in Early Seicento

Venice, considers the two parallel issues at work in this example: the stylistic legacy of

Collectors and Connoisseurs of Venice,” Apollo, 110, (1979), p. 418; and Anthony Hopkins,

“Plans and Planning for S. Maria della Salute, Venice,” The Art Bulletin, 79, (1997), pp. 440-465.

17

The Cretan War lasted from 1647 until 1669, through the reigns of seven Doges. Fought

predominately by the Venetian Republic (with occasional assistance from her allies, the Knights

of Malta, the Papal States and France), against the Ottoman Turks, it was an effort to retain the

territory of Crete. The Venetian fortress of Candia was able to withstand Turkish siege for

twenty-two years, defending a civilian population of less than 12,000. The financial cost to the

Republic was enormous (almost 4.5 million ducats spent in 1668 alone) however, and it was

desperate to raise funds. In an effort to raise money the government allowed the unthinkable—

the sale of political appointments and the opening of noble rank to the new rich for appropriate

monetary compensation. Despite their efforts, the Venetians lost Crete and a treaty was signed on

September 6, 1669. For full history see George Finlay, The History of Greece under Ottoman

and Venetian Domination, (London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1856); Kenneth Meyer

Setton, Venice, Austria, and the Turks in the Seventeenth Century, (Philadelphia: American

Philosophical Society, 1991); Kate Fleet, Suraiya Faroqhi, Reşat Kasaba, The Cambridge History

of Turkey: The Later Ottoman Empire, 1603-1839, (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University

Press, 2006); Molly Greene, A Shared World: Christians and Muslims in the Early Modern

Mediterranean, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000).

12

Cinquecento Venetian masters and their importance in the work of their immediate

Seicento heirs, and the purposeful dissolution and sale of collections of work by those

masters that predominately occurred during the first half of the seventeenth century.

Exploring the situations—political (the artist), economic (the dealer), and social (the

patron)—present in Venice during the early seventeenth century and their direct relation

to the perceived aesthetics of a cultural legacy, this project provides an understanding of

how established visual cues in Venetian art were considered successful or not within their

cultural context and how those stylistic evaluations affected artists working in Venice at

the time. My dissertation uses documented situations and examines known relationships

to investigate these concepts, rather than a strictly mono- or biographic approach.18

The

academic trend has been to overlook the Venetian Seicento in favor of the periods before

and after, but this is a disservice to the century that links them together. Given the wealth

of scholarship now available regarding the history of collecting, art criticism of the period

and the economic and working lives of painters, this phase of Venetian painting needs to

be re-evaluated in relation to the forces and individuals—in and out of Venice—that

influenced and drove it forward and by doing so, arrive at a new contextualization

through which to judge its product. Approaching early Seicento Venice through the lens

of connoisseurship alone; the singular examination of individual paintings in a contextual

void, is sure to result in disappointment. Assessing the modus operandi of these artists

and of the market promises a more satisfying and enlightening outcome.

18

If looking for a straightforward and comprehensive biographical listing of Seicento Venetian

painters one can be found in Homan Potterton’s exhibition catalogue Venetian Seventeenth-

Century Painting, (London: National Gallery, 1979), pp. 34-44.

13

Sixteenth-century pictures formed the stock of the seventeenth-century art market,

and many Seicento Venetian artists—especially those affiliated in some manner with a

Cinquecento master and/or involved in the market as dealers—were aware the style they

naturally revered was also commercially valuable. The maintained taste and popularity

for a certain Venetian type of picture with buyers, in Italy and beyond, meant the

liquidation of the Republic’s visual patrimony. At the same time, success in

contemporary seventeenth-century Venetian art production was based on name

recognition and the promotional and stylistic legacy of the master. The goal in my

dissertation is to re-contextualize the environment in which early Venetian Seicento

painters operated, providing a new standpoint through which to evaluate the multiple

forces influencing a relatively understudied period.

The conundrum for early seventeenth century Venetian painters wasn’t a lack of

ideas or of talent. Rather, it was the economic understanding that buyers, more often than

not those traveling gentleman of quality, didn’t want something new or something

innovative in their pictures—they wanted something they were already familiar with—

reliable (fig. 7), attractive (fig. 8), and recognizable (fig. 9). What they wanted were

Tintorettos, Veroneses and Titians; “Old masters” that would have had a place in any

serious collection, pictures that by their very stylistic nature (and often subject matter)

embodied precisely what a “Venetian painting” was supposed to be and look like.

If we compare Wisdom and Strength, c. 1580 by Paolo Veronese (1528-1588)

(fig. 10) with Pietro Liberi’s (1605-1687) Allegory of Time and Truth, from the mid-

1600s (fig. 8), we can see how the Seicento painter is taking his queues from the

14

Cinquecento master. Liberi deliberately echoes the hallmarks of Veronese’s style; from

the stage-like architectural setting to the positioning of figures in relation to one another,

and the use of a soft toned pastel palette. To the untrained, novice eye, Liberi’s picture

could easily be mistaken as a work from the Veronese bottega.

New works in the Seicento traced a return to past images, traditions, and fantasies

elevated in a rhetorical structure. The Doge’s Palace, which had suffered two great fires

in 1574 and 1577, is a demonstration of the imaginary, virtual history that was nothing

more than fable and legend—the myth of Venice.19

There is a fundamental continuity in

Venetian painting—as an independent and self-sufficient entity—that was capable of

renewing itself in response to new aesthetics and ideological principles without betraying

its own original identity. This is precisely what made Venice so different, a special allure

that lay in its “otherness” that had evolved on a fundamental premise of cultural self-

sufficiency, and was the environment along with its expectations that early seventeenth

century Venetian painters found themselves working.

This concept was perpetuated by the continued sale of Old Masters, whose literal

economic value reinforced the popularity of a particular type of painting in the minds of

both collectors and working artists, while at the same time feeding the appeal of the

Venetian “type.” Characterized by a kind of intense and occasionally debilitating

19

The first fire in 1574 had destroyed several private apartments along with the rooms of the

Collegio and Senate. The 1577 blaze was much worse, gutting the Maggior Consiglio and the

Sala dello Scrutino. Guariento’s large fresco, The Coronation of the Virgin, c. 1365, located on

the wall behind the Doge’s throne was badly damaged and would be replaced by Tintoretto and

his workshop with Paradiso. Other works by Bellini, Titian, Veronese and Tintoretto were also

lost; the last two were able to supply new works however. See David Rosand, Myths of Venice:

The Figuration of a State, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), pp. 18-30 for

programmatic rebuilding within the Palazzo Ducal.

15

retrospection and overwhelming self-consciousness of the past, Venetian seventeenth-

century artists were able to occasionally reinterpret and circumvent their own aesthetic

inheritance through a re-valuation (not evaluation) of their patrimony.

I would suggest that during the Seicento, and particularly during the first decades

of that century, Venetian artists arrived at the conclusion that in order to find success in

the market what they needed most was name recognition—market branding so to speak—

a defined association with quality work that justified their own artistic production;

whether through studio affiliation or direct inheritance. This is not a new idea from an

economic standpoint, nor is it necessarily particular to Venice; people buy a brand, or

“known quantity” not because it is necessarily the best of the best, but because of the

legacy of the company and the reliability and consistency of the product. The problem

for Venetian Seicento artists lay in that in order to be financially successful they needed

to produce pictures that were either reminiscent of their Cinquecento forbearers or copies

after them. In doing so, and despite their attempts at reinvention, they effectively put the

brakes on their own stylistic evolution and development by not taking the risks that were

being born out in centers like Bologna and Rome, and which had in fact been the

hallmark of the predecessors they revered.20

As Jennifer Fletcher noted in her review of the last major exhibition held on

Seicento Venice in 1979, “…we need to know as much as we can about seventeenth-

20

Stefania Mason, “How and Why the Serenissima Did Not Experience the Great Art of

Caravaggio,” Venezia Altrove, (2003), pp. 149-155 Linda Bauer, “Artist’s Inventories and the

Language of the Oil Sketch,” The Burlington Magazine, 141, (1999), pp. 520-530, Homan

Potterton, “Aspects of Venetian Seicento Painting,” Apollo, (1979), pp. 408-415.

16

century Venetian painting. If the art-historical aftermath to an exhibition of this quality is

nothing more than a handful of revised chronologies and reattributed works, a great

opportunity will have been lost.”21

Seventeenth century Venetian art has never been

given a long chapter in scholarship with most accounts describing it as a period of

slumber; only the contributions of outsiders arriving mid-century seemed to enliven it.

Born in the 1580s and 1590s, the work of Bernardo Strozzi, Johann Liss and Domenico

Fetti tends to be overstressed at the expense of native painters who would work in the

same period: Alessandro Varotari, called Padovanino, Pietro Liberi, Carlo Saraceni, who

brought Caravaggism to the Veneto, and Pietro della Vecchia are but a few names, along

with Antonio Zanchi who would finally embrace the Baroque trend (fig. 11). And yet in

his lifetime, Pietro Liberi amassed a fortune large enough to purchase a palazzo on the

Grand Canal, while Zanchi would demand the hefty sum of 34 ducats per square meter

for his paintings.22

Clearly, their accumulation of wealth indicates their market success

during their lifetimes, even if their artistic production has remained largely neglected by

scholars.

But to climb, wheezing, to the top floor of the Museo Ca’Rezzonico in Venice

and behold the egregious swath that constitutes the Egidio Martini Collection, offers a

21

Jennifer Fletcher, “Venetian Seventeenth Century Painting at the National Gallery,” The

Burlington Magazine, 121, (1979), pp. 665-669.

22

Philip Sohm and Richard Spear, Painting for Profit: The Economic Lives of Seventeenth-

Century Painters, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), pp. 214 & 235, table 27.

17

sense of why this disregard has occurred.23

To be perfectly blunt, Seicento Venetian

painting isn’t very good; in fact, it can be perfectly awful at times (fig. 12). While every

artist has the occasional flop or hiccup, it is quite astounding how spectacularly terrible

these paintings are when taken all together. But this is exactly my point: when you have

Titian, Veronese and Tintoretto as the standard by which to judge, when (nearly) every

canvas they produced is innovative and evocative so that even the most loutish of

observers stares in slack-jawed wonder at their beauty, all the rest must fall to the

wayside in deference to their splendor. When I speak of the re-contextualization and the

examination of visual inheritance for early Seicento painters, it is not with the purpose in

mind to somehow argue they have aesthetically been misunderstood, but rather to

articulate that there was no other course by which they could proceed as artists. For

buyers and the market as well there was no choice; only to yearn for one of the finite

number of works created during the lifetime of a master, or to buy and commission from

the generation that followed.

In a more positive vein, Seicento Venice should not be seen as dormant as there,

more than in any other city, was a healthy cross-fertilization of artistic trends that would

eventually lead to the development of eighteenth century artists like Piazzetta, Pellegrini,

and Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. Significantly expansive scholarship on the period

however, has been limited to disciplines outside of art history: Brian Pullan, Frederic

23

The Egidio Martini Collection at Ca’Rezzonico, Venice, ranges from the 15th

to the 20th century

(with a heavy emphasis on the 17th

) and all are of the Venetian school. It is the most important

painting donation made since the beginning of the 20th

century to the city of Venice, mainly

because it is the only one. Martini (1919-2011) was an art critic, restorer and artist, with rather

eclectic taste. See Egidio Martini, Pittura Veneta, (Rimini: Stefano Patacconi Editore, 1992).

18

Lane, Domenico Sella and Robert Rapp in economics; Oliver Logan, James Davis and

Peter Burke in social history, while Isabella Cecchini, Elena Favaro and Simone Savini-

Branca have considered collecting and the commercial art market.24

Recently, Philip

Sohm discussed at length the economic lives of painters in his chapter on seventeenth

century Venice in Painting for Profit, but did not delve deeply into issues of reception

and stylistic legacy.25

Renewed interest in the history of Venetian patronage and

provenance by Stefania Mason and Linda Borean has built on the seminal work of E.K.

Waterhouse begun in 1952, but the last major exhibition devoted exclusively to Venetian

seventeenth century paintings was held in 1979.26

24

Brian Pullan, ed., Crisis and Change in the Venetian Economy in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth

Centuries, (London: Methuen, 1968); Frederic Lane, Venice, A Maritime Republic (Baltimore:

Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973); Richard Rapp, Industry and Economic Decline in

Seventeenth Century Venice, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1976); Oliver Logan,

Culture and Society in Venice 1470-1790, (London: Scribner, 1972); James Cushman Davis, The

Decline of the Venetian Nobility as a Ruling Class, (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,

1962); Peter Burke, Venice and Amsterdam: A study of Seventeenth-Century Élites, (London:

Temple Smith, 1974); Peter Burke, "Conspicuous Consumption in Seventeenth-Century Italy,"

Historical Anthropology of Early Modern Italy, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987);

Isabella Cecchini, Quadri e commercio a Venezia durante il Seicento : uno studio sul mercato

dell'arte, (Venice: Marsilio Editore, 2000); Elena Favaro, L’Arte dei pittori in Venezia e I suoi

statute, (Florence: L. S. Olschki, 1975); Simone Savini-Branca, Il collezionismo veneziano nel

'600, (Padua: CEDAM, Università di Padova, 1964).

25

Philip Sohm and Richard Spear, Painting for Profit: The Economic Lives of Seventeenth-

Century Painters, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), specifically Chapter 5, pp. 206-

210, considers the problem of decline but in retrospect from 1679 to the end of the seventeenth

century, and while acknowledging a general dissatisfaction for the state of current painting

quickly returns to economic factors as the culprit.

26

Linda Borean and Stefania Mason, Il Collezionismo d’arte a Venezia. Il Seicento, (Venezia:

Marsilio Editori, 2007); E.K. Waterhouse, “Paintings from Venice for Seventeenth Century

England: Some Records of a Forgotten Transaction,” Italian Studies, 7, (1952), pp. 1-23.

Potterton, Homan, Venetian Seventeenth-Century Painting, (London: National Gallery, London,

1979).

19

David Rosand’s "The Crisis of the Venetian Renaissance Tradition," published in

L'Arte in 1970, began the discussion of stylistic legacy and visual reinterpretation at the

cusp of the seventeenth century, but his later work then predominately moved back firmly

into the Cinquecento.27

The small 1979 exhibition mounted by curator Homan Potterton

provided a reprisal of the problems surrounding seventeenth century Venetian painting—

predominately issues of quality, but did not expand the issues raised by Rosand regarding

workshop legacy.28

The exhibition did succeed; albeit briefly, to return the spotlight to

artists ignored since a 1959 exhibition at Ca’Pesaro, which had been the last major show

on the Venetian Seicento prior to Potterton’s.29

Published in 1981, Rodolfo Pallucchini’s

La Pittura Veneziana del Seicento included biographies and a comprehensive list of

artists’ works but little analysis of contributing political, economic and social factors.30

Since that time art historians have focused on individual artist monographs of the period,

keeping their subjects relatively isolated with regard to influence and association and not

examining collective influences.31

27

David Rosand, "The Crisis of the Venetian Renaissance Tradition," L'Arte, 11-12, (1970), pp.

5-53. See this bibliography for relevant works by Rosand.

28

Homan Potterton, Venetian Seventeenth-Century Painting, (London: National Gallery, London,

1979).

29

Pietro Zampetti, La pittura del Seicento a Venezia, (Venice: Alfieri, 1959).

30

Rodolfo Pallucchini, La pittura veneziana del Seicento, 2 vols., (Venice: Alfieri, 1981).

31

Examples of this include: Bernard Aikema, Pietro della Vecchia and the Heritage of the

Renaissance in Venice. (Florence: Istituto universitario olandese di storia dell'arte, 1990);

Bernard Aikema, "Pietro della Vecchia, A Profile," Saggi e memorie di storia dell'arte, 14,

(1984), pp. 77-100; Ugo Ruggeri, Il Padovanino, (Soncino: Ed. dei Soncino, 1993); Alberto

Riccoboni, Antonio Zanchi e la pittura veneziana del Seicento, (Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 1967);

Ugo Ruggeri, Pietro e Marco Liberi. Pittori nella Venezia del Seicento, (Rimini: Stefano

20

Large, focused publications that exclusively discuss Seicento Venetian painting

are not frequent. The two volume set La Pittura nel Veneto: Il Seicento, published in

2000, offers essays that provide a general survey of Seicento artworks without a full

account of the possible influences behind their production.32

Prior to it there had been

Carlo Donzelli, I pittori del Seicento Veneto, published in 1967 followed by Rodolfo

Pallucchini’s La pittura veneziana del Seicento from 1981. Pallucchini’s wife, Anna,

focused her work on Marco Boschini; her transcription of the Carta is invaluable.

Although there is an effort to cover varied topics within Venetian visual culture

during the Seicento, there is no attempt to discuss the relationships and interplay between

corresponding aspects of artist, dealer and patron, and there is simply no focused and

dedicated confrontation of the problem in scholarship. Max Friedlaender, and more

recently Richard Spear, Philipp Fehl and Maria Loh have considered issues of workshop

practice, instruction through imitation, and production of copies, but are not exclusively

focused on Venetian Seicento painters, often speaking in broader terms.33

The work of

Lionello Puppi, Marta Mazza and Giorgio Tagliaferro has centered on Titian’s studio in

Patacconi, 1996); Carolyn Valone, “Il Padovanino: A New Look and A New Work,” Arte veneta,

36, (1982), pp. 161-166; Pier Luigi Fantelli, "Nicolò Renieri «pittor fiamengo»," Saggi e memorie

di storia dell'arte, 9, (1974), pp. 77-115.

32

Mauro Lucco, ed., La pittura nel Veneto. Il Seicento, (Milan: Electra, 2000).

33

Max Friedlaender, “Artistic Quality: Original and Copy,” The Burlington Magazine, 78,

(1941), pp. 143-151; Richard Spear, “Notes on Renaissance and Baroque Originals and

Originality,” Retaining the Original. Multiple Originals, Copies, and Reproductions, ed. K.

Preciado, 20, (Hanover: Studies in the History of Art, 1989), pp. 97-99; Philipp Fehl, "Imitation

as a Source of Greatness. Rubens, Titian and the Painting of the Ancients," Bacchanals by Titian

and Rubens, ed. G. Cavalli-Björkman, (Stockholm: Nationalmuseum, 1987), pp. 107-132; Maria

Loh, Titian Remade: Repetition and the Transformation of Early Modern Italian Art, (Los

Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2007).

21

recent years, shedding light on late commissions and the careers of his followers, but

always circle back to the issues related solely to the master painter and not concerned

with the lives of his assistants and students.34

Similar work has been done with the

studios of Veronese and Tintoretto, and while these publications examine their late

careers they only occasionally touch on the issue of copying and derivative expression

among their inheritors.35

The ongoing Venetian Database Project supported by the Getty Research Institute

and the publications made available by Venezia Altrove through the Cini Foundation

continue to make accessible key provenance research for paintings produced in Venice.

Together with primary sources and archival documentation from the Archivio di Stato di

Venezia, now published by Mason and Borean, this information assists in tracing the

movement of individual paintings from workshop to collections, revealing the exchange

34

Lionello Puppi, Per Tiziano, (Milano: Skira, 2004); Marta Mazza, Lungo le vie di Tiziano: i

luoghi e le opere di Tiziano, Francesco, Orazio e Marco Vecellio tra Vittorio Veneto e il Cadore,

(Milano: Skira, 2007); Giorgio Tagliaferro, Le botteghe di Tiziano, (Florence: Alinari, 2009).

35

Beverly Louise Brown, “Replication and the Art of Veronese,” Retaining the Original:

Multiple Originals, Copies, and Reproductions, Studies in the History of Art, 20, ed. Kathleen

Preciado, (Hanover: University Press of New England, 1989), pp. 111-124; Bruce Cole, “Titian

and the Idea of Originality,” The Craft of Art: Originality and Industry in the Italian Renaissance

and Baroque Workshop, eds. Andrew Ladis and Carolyn Wood, (Athens: University of Georgia

Press, 1995), pp. 86-112; Echols, Robert, “Toward a new Tintoretto Catalogue, with a Checklist

of revised Attributions and a new Chronology.” Jacopo Tintoretto: Actas del Congreso

Internacional, ed. Miguel Falomir, (Madrid: Museo Nacional del Prado, 2009), pp. 91-150; John

Garton, “Paolo Veronese’s Art of Business: Painting, Investment, and the Studio as Social

Nexus,” Renaissance Quarterly, 65, (2012), pp. 753-808; Diane Gisolfi, “Collaboration and

Replicas in the Shop of Paolo Veronese and His Heirs,” Artibus et Historiae, 28, Special Articles

in Memory of W.R. Rearick (1930—2004), Part 1, (2007), pp. 73-86; Virginia Brilliant, ed.,

Paolo Veronese: A Master and His Workshop in Renaissance Venice, (London: Scala, 2012).

22

of ownership in the Seicento. While the new accessibility to this information is

invaluable, it has yet to be considered in relation to Venetian state identity, decisions and

recognition of patrimony, and the problems of visual inheritance and reinterpretation

initially articulated by Rosand regarding Seicento artists’ attempt to redefine and

modernize their Renaissance tradition.

With the death of Veronese in 1588 and Tintoretto in 1594, Palma il Giovane

(1548-1628) stepped in as a readily able link to the Cinquecento studios and became the

most prolific painter in Venice. He had trained with Titian, was heavily influenced by

Tintoretto, and contributed countless altarpieces and canvases to the churches of

Venice.36

Though his work was occasionally routine, his Venice Crowned by Victory,

1578-1584 (fig. 13), on the ceiling of the Maggior Consiglio was pendant to Veronese’s

Apotheosis of Venice (fig. 2) and one of his finest works. His life and artistic production

bridge the generation between the old masters and their followers, and his paintings

would fill the initial dearth of works available. His production belongs firmly among the

ranks of Cinquecento artists, but among them he more often rates only as mediocre. For

example, while he takes his cues from Veronese on the ceiling of the Palazzo Ducale, the

influence of Tintoretto is obvious in the figures and action of his Heraclius Takes the

Cross to Jerusalem from 1590 in San Giovanni Elemosinario. In this painting the figures

are wooden and cartoonish, and the composition lacks any dynamism or cohesion as

36

Stefania Mason Rinaldi, Palma il Giovane, 1548-1628: disegni e dipinti, (Milan: Electa, 1990);

Heinrich Schwartz, “Palma il Giovane and His Family: Observations on Some Portrait

Drawings,” Master Drawings, 3, (1965), pp. 158-165; David Rosand, “Palma il Giovane as

Draughtsman: The Early Career and Related Observations,” Master Drawings, 8, (1970), pp.

148-161.

23

though it was completed in a rush (fig. 14). It was his fortune to outlive the masters and

provide the last living link to them that history remembers him. His onetime pupil Marco

Boschini would publish the painting guides to Venice, La carta del navegar pitoresco

(1660) and Le ricche minere della pittura (1664), and become an important figure in the

art market as a dealer and agent.37

The chapters of this dissertation progress from the early half of the Seicento with

workshop methodology to the middle of the century and the activities of Marco Boschini

and his associates as picture dealers. The relationship between master and student is

examined in Chapter Two, along with the teaching method within the Venetian

workshop, or bottega, and the issue of inheritance and legacy. The use of instructional

drawing manuals, private art academies and the reorganization of the Painter’s Guild are

discussed, along with the influence of artists from outside of Venice. Turning to the artist

biographies of Carlo Ridolfi published in 1648, this chapter considers the generation of

artists trained in the workshops of the great Cinquecento masters—Veronese, Bassano,

Tintoretto, in addition to a case study on the type of collaboration taking place in the

studio of Titian. There was a buyer’s appeal for deliberate Old Master forgeries; those

with the ability to mimic the hand of the master had the advantage.38

Name recognition

37

Jennifer Fletcher, “Marco Boschini and Paolo del Sera: Collectors and Connoisseurs of

Venice,” Apollo, 110, (1979), pp. 416-424; Anna Pallucchini, “La Posizione Critica di Marco

Boschini,” Arte veneta, 18, (1964), pp. 89-98; Philip Sohm, Pitoresco: Marco Boschini, his

critics, and their critiques of painterly brushwork in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Italy,

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).

38

Pier Luigi Fantelli, "Breve itinerario nella pittura veneta del Seicento," Le Ricche Minere della

Pittura Veneziana. Studi sulla pittura veneta del Seicento, ed. Vittorio Sgarbi, (Rome: De Luca,

24

and branding was critical to commercial success, and will be demonstrated through the

example of the studio of Jacopo Tintoretto and his son and heir, Domenico. Using the

notarized inventories of studio contents and wills available in the Archivio di Stato di

Venezia, the physical inheritance of the Tintoretto shop can be traced alongside the

promotional legacy.

Returning to the visiting foreign gentleman of quality, Chapter Three considers art

market valuations and the competitive nature of collecting by outsiders in the early

decades through the late 1620s in Venice and how they would eventually set the tone for

Boschini, del Sera and company. English agents such as William Petty (1585—1639)

and Balthazar Gerbier (1592—1667) acquired art in Venice on behalf of their patrons,

and often political superiors, and this chapter examines how they navigated the sales,

made the deals and attempted to out-maneuver and outwit one another and their Venetian

counterparts in the market. Dignitaries and appointed ambassadors Dudley Carleton

(1573—1632) and Basil, Lord Feilding (1608—1675) also purchased on behalf of their

sovereigns, attempting to facilitate their own political ambitions. Like the published

guides and travel logs of their countryman, the desire for Venetian pictures by the

English aristocracy only served to solidify and popularize the myth of Venice abroad. 39

1982), pp. 79-102; Giuseppe De Rita, “A Cultural Diaspora with No Regrets (When the City was

a Centre of Production,” Venezia Altrova, (2002), pp. 9-27. 39

See Jonathan Brown, Kings and Connoisseurs, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994);

Jerry Brotton, The Sale of the Late Kings Goods, (London: MacMillan, 2006) for the popularity

of Venetian pictures in English collections; and on the strength of the Myth of Venice in England,

Zera S. Fink, The Classical Republicans: An Essay in the Recovery of a Pattern of Thought in

Seventeenth Century England, Northwestern University Studies in the Humanities, 9, (Evanston:

Northwestern University Press, 1945), particularly Chapter 1.

25

While agents were eager to purchase works by Jacopo Tintoretto they also had

their portraits painted by his son Domenico. Fialetti, Strozzi, and Tinelli were also

favored and on occasion offered their expert services to prospective buyers.

Connoisseurship became a pastime for the amateur. By the time Marco Boschini’s Carta

and the Le ricche minere della pittura were published in the second half of the century,

they were as much as record of remaining paintings in Venice as a promotion of

Boschini’s authority on the subject as a dealer. The erstwhile economic fortunes of the

nobility and the tenacity of foreigners eager to buy their pictures had drastically reduced

the stock of available Old Masters.

The sale of Bartolomeo della Nave’s collection had occurred twenty years prior to

the dispersal of objects from Santo Spirito in Isola and intervention of the Painter’s Guild

in 1656.40

It exemplifies an earlier attitude of Venetians toward their patrimony at a time

when Old Masters were still plentiful in the city and the removal of works was not yet

perceived as a loss. The range and quality of della Nave’s collection suggests a refined

taste and a clear awareness of value, and the fact he also bought from contemporary

Seicento painters implies their positive reputation. As a Venetian he actively pursued the

acquisition of his own patrimony, but he was equally willing to part with it.

Despite the breadth and importance of his collection, little is known about the

merchant-made-noble family of della Nave. From Ridolfi we know that he was most

likely collecting by 1608, having acquired several items from the collection of the

40

The buyer was Basil, Lord Feilding, Ambassador to Venice, on behalf of his brother-in-law the

Third Marquis of Hamilton. The transaction was completed by May 1638. Historical Manuscript

Commission, 4th Report, Earl of Denbigh MSS, 1911, p. 257-258.

26

sculptor Alessandro Vittoria after his death that year.41

In his L’Idea dell’Architettura

Universale (1615) Vincenzo Scamozzi briefly mentions that della Nave purchased works

from Cardinal Pietro Bembo, and the painter Simon Vouet mentions his request to view

the della Nave collection in a letter to Ferranta Carlo, dated 14 August 1627.42

By

1636—1637 the della Nave family had entered into negotiations with the English

Ambassador to Venice, Viscount Feilding, who was purchasing pictures for the 3rd

Marquess of Hamilton. Della Nave owned paintings by Titian as well as by Padovanino,

and of the nine paintings by Paolo Veronese in his collection several were purchased by

Feilding along with two works by Jacopo Tintoretto.43

The best source for this

information is from the Historical MSS Commission, 4th

Report (Earl of Denbigh MSS)

where the correspondence between Feilding and Hamilton illustrates the detail and

41

Bartolomeo della Nave was a silk merchant; the family was originally from Bergamo. They

were admitted to the nobility in 1653, most likely purchased under the easement of restrictions

during the Cretan War. See Note 16, this chapter. However, this would have occurred after

Bartolomeo’s death which was probably 1632. Carlo Ridolfi, Le Maraviglie dell’Arte, (Milan:

Arnoldo Forni Editore, 2002), vol.1, p. 328. Other sources for information on della Nave can be

found in E.A. Cicogna, Delle inscrizioni veneziane, (Venezia: Presso Givseppe Orlandelli, 1824-

53), VI, p. 33 and Giovanni Gaetano Bottari, Raccolta di lettere sulla pittura, scultura ed

architettura, (Rome: Per gli Eredi Barbiellini, 1754), I, p. 232.

42

Vincenzo Scamozzi, Idea dell'architettura universal, (Venetiis: Per Giorgio Valentino, 1615),

I, p. 306 references Bembo; E.K. Waterhouse, “Paintings from Venice for Seventeenth Century

England: Some Records of a Forgotten Transaction,” Italian Studies, 7, (1952), p. 5.

43

See Simona Savini-Branca, Il Collezionismo Veneziano nel ‘600 (Padua, 1964), pp. 251-254 for

a list of his pictures, also E.K. Waterhouse, “Paintings from Venice for Seventeenth Century

England: Some Records of a Forgotten Transaction,” Italian Studies, 7, (1952), pp. 1-23, his List

A is the della Nave Collection. Ridolfi mentions della Nave and Feilding in his Life of Veronese

in Le Maraviglie dell’Arte, (Milan: Arnoldo Forni Editore, 2002), vol. 2, pp. 58-61.

27

lengthy process of picture buying—mimicking the same correspondence del Sera would

have with his patron, Leopoldo de’Medici in the following decades.44

The shift from mercantile trade within the city to commerce and agriculture on the

terra firma indicated a dramatic shift for the fortunes of the Venetian nobility during the

second half of the Seicento and affected the frequency of their commissions.45

Chapter

Four introduces the relationship between Marco Boschini (c. 1602/5—1681), Paolo del

Sera (1614—1672) and their associates as art dealers within the market at the height of

their careers mid-century.46

Venetian born, Boschini dealt in pictures and false pearls

and had trained under Palma il Giovane and Odoardo Fialetti, representing the schools of

Titian and Tintoretto respectively, and he was most likely in contact with del Sera by

1640. A Florentine nobleman, del Sera was an amateur artist, collector, and personal

friend of Leopoldo de’Medici for whom he acted as agent and advisor. The majority of

letters describing his Venetian activities are held in the Archivio di Stato di Firenze,

Carteggio d’Artisti, Vols. V-VII but they remain largely unpublished.47

44

For the letters and a full discussion detailing these transactions, see Paul Shakeshaft, “’To

Much Bewiched with Thoes Intysing Things’: The Letters of James, Third Marquis of Hamilton

and Basil, Viscount Feilding, concerning Collecting in Venice 1635-1639,” The Burlington

Magazine, 128, (1986), pp. 114-178 and the letters of del Sera in the Archivio di Stato, Firenze,

Carteggi dei Artisti.

45

In particular, see S. J. Woolf, “Venice and the Terraferma: Problems of the Change from

Commercial to Landed Activities,” in Crisis and Change in the Venetian Economy in the

Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, ed. Brian Pullan, (London: Methuen, 1968), pp. 175-203.

46

Jennifer Fletcher, “Marco Boschini and Paolo del Sera—Collectors and Connoisseurs of

Venice,” Apollo, vol. 110, (November, 1979), pp. 416-424.

47

Nine letters between del Sera and his employer Leopoldo d’Medici have been published by

Gloria Chiarini de Anna, “Nove Lettere di Paolo del Sera a Leopoldo d’Medici,” Paragone, 307,

(1975), pp. 87-99. For Boschini see Lucia e Ugo Procacci, “Il Carteggio di Marco Boschini con il

28

Seventeenth century Venetian artists were hired for new commissions, but they

were also hired to authenticate Old Masters. When none were available, they were often

then hired to fabricate one. Marco Boschini facilitated such arrangements, while

simultaneously lauding the virtues of the Venetian style in his published guides to the

city’s visual patrimony. During the same period the Venetian state came to recognize the

patrimonial value that earlier pictures embodied; not just as ready commodities but as the

literal visual incarnation of the state during the height of its political and economic

power. Although copying was an important component of the learning process in the

Venetian studio, it could lead, as it did in the seventeenth-century, to a scarcity of

originality and artistic evolution.48

Together, Boschini and del Sera represented the establishment of the personal

curator and art dealer, connoisseurship as a discipline, and the collaboration taking place

to locate paintings for sale in the seventeenth century Venetian market. They exemplify

the sensali; the middlemen who knew inventories, exchange rates, customs duties, and

packing and valuation. Unlike foreign agents representing outside interests who had no

similar qualms, the relationship between Boschini and del Sera illustrates the vacillation

Cardinale Leopoldo de’Medici,” Saggi e Memorie di Storia dell’Arte, IV, (1965), pp. 85-114, and

Michelangelo Muraro, “Studiosi, Collezionisti e opera d’arte Veneta dalle lettere al Cardinale

Leopoldo de’Medici,” Saggi e Memorie di Storia dell’Arte, IV, (1965), pp. 65-83. The body of

material is available in the Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Carteggio d’Artisti, Vols. V-VII, with

additional documents such as inventories and testaments held in Venice: Archivio di Stato di

Venezia, Notarile, Testamenti, Pietro Bracchi, b. 185; Giudici dell’esaminador, Inventari, b. 6.

48 See Hans Tietze, “Master and Workshop in the Venetian Renaissance,” Parnassus, 11, (1939),

pp. 34-35, and David Rosand, “The Crisis of the Venetian Renaissance Tradition,” L'Arte, 11-12,

(1970), pp. 5-53.

29

between their dedication and protective reverence of Venetian art, and their commercial

need.49

When Thomas Coryat misread Veronese’s allegory of Venice as the Virgin Mary

on the ceiling of the Maggior Consiglio, his mistake was telling. In that moment of

honest misinterpretation in 1608, he created a metaphor for a century of Venetian art and

unknowingly discovered the underpinning of the true myth of Venice; simultaneously,

“com’era, dov’era” (as it was, where it was) and “nothing is as it seems.”50

Seicento Venice was a conflation of contradictions bundled into untidy baggage;

losing diplomatic prowess it excelled at unearthing secrets, uncertain of the future it built

propaganda to the past. Her artistic glories were sold for profit only to be realized as the

core of her unique identity, while her artists struggled to redefine their ideological

perspective and working methods and to reinterpret, acknowledge, contend with, and

catalogue the dominant traditions of the Venetian visual legacy. It was a period that

heralded the coming of the modern age, and exhibited all the growing pains of a petulant

teenager.

49

Boschini worked exclusively in Venice and the Veneto region, and represented Leopoldo

de’Medici’s Venetian interests after Paolo del Sera’s death. See Stefania Mason and Linda

Borean, Il Collezionismo d’arte a Venezia: Il Seicento, (Venice: Marsilio, 2007), pp. 245-246 and

pp. 264-265, and Edward Goldberg, Patterns in Late Medici Art Patronage, (Princeton: Princeton

University Press, 1983), in particular Chapter 3.

50

“Com’era, dov’era” is an expression that became popular when the campanile of San Marco

collapsed in 1902. It was, and is, a Venetian rallying cry against the onslaught to their past. The

saying also became the official motto for the rebuilding plan of La Fenice opera house after it was

destroyed by fire in 1996. It is used in Venetian slang to express a rejection of time’s dictate, to

illustrate that while everything changes, everything remains the same.

30

CHAPTER 2: The Legacy of Visual Neurosis: Early Seicento Venetian Painters

Confront Their Past

Tell me why, good Heav’n,

Thou mad’st me what I am, with all the Spirit,

Aspiring thoughts and Elegant desires

That fill the happiest Man ~ Ah! rather why

Did’st thou not form me sordid as my Fate,

Based minded, dull, and fit to carry Burdens ~

Why have I sense to know the Curse that’s on me? 1

The unique position of the Venetian Republic as a gateway to the East meant a

constant influx of foreign travelers to the city; arriving as merchants conducting their

affairs, as tourists who could afford the luxury of travel, and as diplomatic entourages on

the business of their country and king. Due to the significance and breadth of Venetian

mercantile territories, for centuries a sojourn in Venice meant accessibility to exotic

items, including art.2 Acquiring a Venetian painting or having one’s portrait done in the


online from Project Gutenberg. See Note 1, Chapter 1.

2 By the seventeenth century, the territorial fortunes of the Republic had already declined

significantly due to the encroachment of the Ottoman Empire into the Mediterranean. Indeed, the

Battle of the Dardanelles was the last major naval victory by the Venetians, but it was not

sufficient to win the overall war. The garrison capital city of Candia on the island of Crete was

relinquished to the Turkish forces after withstanding twenty years of siege, having been a

Venetian territory since 1211. The Turks would rule Crete until 1897. See John Julius Norwich, A

History of Venice, (London: Penguin Books, 1982), pp. 542-560 for an account of the Cretan War

(1645-1669) and its effect on Venetian society. Pietro Liberi commemorated the event with his

Venetian Victory Over the Turks at the Dardanelles, 1660-1665, in the Chamber of the Scrutinio

in the Palazzo Ducale. Despite this loss, Venice remained a clearinghouse for luxury imports and

a crossroad for trade. For a detailed account of the everyday life of a merchant and his family

living during this period, see Ugo Tucci’s excellent study, Un Mercante Veneziano del Seicento:

Simon Giogalli, (Venezia: Istituto Veneto Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, 2007); for an overall

discussion see Domenico Sella, “Crisis and Transformation in Venetian Trade,” in Crisis and

31

city was de rigueur for the gentleman of quality who could afford the indulgence, and the

market for Cinquecento masters and their Seicento workshop productions was vibrant

and competitive. Domenico, the son and heir to Jacopo Tintoretto, was a prolific portrait

painter alongside his public commissions, with many foreign travelers finding their way

to his door to sit for a souvenir by the great master’s son (fig. 15).

This chapter discusses the working methodology within the Venetian studio

during the Cinquecento and following into the early years of the Seicento, focusing on

the teaching and collaborative process between master and student. The inheritors of an

artist’s workshop were typically family members who continued to produce works in the

same manner, although other followers and students who left a studio to open their own

bottega would often continue to adhere to the style of the masters they had contact with

and were influenced by. Exploring specific examples of collaboration from Titian’s

workshop, the use of drawing and subsequent publications of drawing books or primers,

and how these teaching methodologies were handed down as part of a visual inheritance

in the case of the Tintoretto shop, this chapter breaks down the complexity of influences

and interactions taking place among Venetian artists.

Briefly, let us consider the Supper at Emmaus by Antonio Vassilacchi, called

l’Aliense (1556—1629) from 1618 in the church of San Pietro di Castello as a

springboard into the panorama of early Seicento characters and their interwoven

relationships (fig. 16). Comparing his work with that of Paolo Veronese and Jacopo

Change in the Venetian Economy in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, ed. Brian Pullan,

(London: Methuen & Co: 1968), pp. 88-105; and for the art trade, the critical work by Isabella

Cecchini, Quadri e commercio a Venezia durante il Seicento, (Venezia: Marsilio, 2000).

32

Tintoretto respectively: first, a detail from the Feast in the House of Levi, 1573, now in

the Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice, but originally painted for the refectory of SS.

Giovanni e Paolo (fig. 17), and one of the many Tintoretto Last Supper canvases, this one

from 1568-1569 located in San Polo (fig. 18). Some figures, their forms twisting or seen

from behind are reminiscent of Tintoretto, while others with their inclined heads and

languid poses recall Veronese’s diners. The dense earthy tones, punctuated sharply by

patches of white indicate the strength of Tintoretto’s influence, while the attention to

detail and the balanced architectural backdrop are suggestive of Veronese’s

compositions. Indeed, l’Aliense had studied under Veronese before opening his own

studio, and would work on occasion with his brother Benedetto Caliari (1538—1598), for

example at the bishop’s residence in Treviso. He also collaborated with Jacopo

Tintoretto for the state visit to Venice of Henry III, King of France in 1574, decorating

the temporary triumphal arch which was placed on the Lido, and would work again with

both father and son Domenico in the early 1590s at the Scuola dei Mercanti.3 In

Veronese’s studio he was responsible for copying drawings and paintings, and

independently he formed his own personal collection of drawings by multiple artists.4

Beyond the confluence of the style of two masters in the work of l’Aliense, (like

that of Palma il Giovane), through this particular painting in San Pietro di Castello the

3 Rodolfo Pallucchini, La pittura veneziana del seicento, i, (Milan: Electra, 1981), pp. 44–46;

Giorgio Boccassini: ‘Profilo dell’Aliense’, Arte Veneta, xii (1958), pp. 111–125; Rodolfo

Pallucchini, ed., Da Tiziano a El Greco: Per la storia del manierismo a Venezia, 1540–1590

(Venice: Fondazione Cini, 1981), p. 231.

4 Bert W. Meijer, ‘Disegni di Antonio Vassilacchi detto l’Aliense’, Arte Veneta, liii, (1998), pp.

34–51; Carmen Bambach, “A new Drawing by Antonio Vassilacchi, Called Aliense,” Master

Drawings, 47 (2009), pp. 452-457.

http://www.oxfordartonline.com.ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/subscriber/article_citations/grove/art/T088264#abbr-explained

33

tangled web of personal relationships can also be illustrated and teased apart. L’Aliense,

who had worked with both Veronese and Tintoretto while they were alive, also worked

with their inheritors after their deaths; he collaborated on the Castello Supper at Emmaus

with Pietro Malombra (1556—1618), who in turn had often worked alongside the self-

taught and Titian/Tintoretto influenced Giovanni Contarini—in whose biography Carlo

Ridolfi makes his allusion to the pillars of Hercules quoted in Chapter One—while

Ridolfi himself had been trained in the workshop of l’Aliense (1607—1612) before he

penned his Lives and remained a close friend with his former teacher until his death.5

While this is admittedly abstract, so was their interwoven network of relationships, and

my point is simply to show that you could not have been an artist in early seventeenth

century Venice without, by either immediate or close degrees of separation, have entered

into the circle of one or several Cinquecento masters.6

5 See Bert W. Meijer, “Per Pietro Malombra disegnatore, e per Ascanio Spineda,” Arte Veneta,

49, (1996), pp. 31-35. Interestingly, Malombra and Contarini both declined (although were later

forced) to enter the Painter’s Guild on the grounds that painting was a liberal art and not a craft

and therefore they could not be restricted from practicing it for their own pleasure and not as an

avocation. See David Rosand, "The Crisis of the Venetian Renaissance Tradition," L'Arte, 11-12,

(1970), p. 38.

6 In a wholly contemporary day comparison, one could simply play a game of “Six Degress of

Tintoretto” and connect every artist in Venice.

34

1. The Venetian Workshop and its Structure: The Case of the Two San Lorenzos

Unlike the more formalized artistic training in the Accademia delle Arti del

Disegno, founded in Florence in 1563 or the Accademia degli Incamminati of the

Carracci family founded in 1582, training in the painter’s art in Venice retained a strong

semblance to medieval apprenticeship. Entering the workshop at a young age, assistants

began with the fastidious task of learning to grind and mix pigments and prepare

canvases, graduating to more complicated tasks as the years passed. Painting was a trade

like any other, and in Venice it was predominately a family enterprise that passed from

father to son.7 Artistic activity was not considered a personal affair in Venice; it held an

important position in the community because it served a critical social function as the

vehicle of state propaganda. The patriarchal management of the workshop meant that

even those who had entered from outside the family circle were eventually often

absorbed into it. Girolamo da Tiziano (c. 1510—c. 1570) had entered Titian’s house in

1525 at the age of fifteen and remained with him for thirty years, acting as witness to his

master’s wedding and eventually taking the Vecellio name as his own.8 He was

mentioned by the secretary to the Spanish ambassador in Venice, who in 1564 wrote to

7 David Rosand, “Veronese and Company: Artistic Production in a Venetian Workshop,” from

the exhibition catalog Veronese and His Studio in North American Collections, Birmingham

Museum of Art, (October 1 – November 15, 1972), p. 6.

8 Hans Tietze, “Master and Workshop in the Venetian Renaissance,” Parnassus, 11, (1939), p.

35. For evidence of Girolamo’s age, see: Gustav Ludwig, “Neue Funde im Staatsarchiv zu

Venedig: Tizians Hochzeit,” Jahrbuch der Köinglichen Preussischen Kunstsammlungen, 24,

(1903), p. 114, “Puto allora de anni quindexe incircha” (a youngster of about fifteen years) when

witness at Titian’s wedding. This was Titian’s marriage to his first wife Cecilia, the mother of

Orazio and his older brother Pomponio (b. 1522).

35

Philip II’s secretary Gonzalo Pérez about the possibility of acquiring a copy of Titian’s

Martyrdom of San Lorenzo to be painted by Girolamo.9 Along with Titian’s son and heir

apparent Orazio (c. 1522/25—1576), his cousin Marco Vecellio (1545—1611), the

German painter Emmanuel Amberger and the mosaicist Valerio Zuccato, Girolamo was

part of the core nucleus around the master that oversaw daily operations.10

Counting on

the growth of the two related painters within his shop, Titian was attempting to cement

the future of his legacy and guarantee their support as part of his dynastic prosperity.11

Philip II’s San Lorenzo commission provides us with a good example of the type

of workshop delegation and collaboration that would remain the model throughout the

seventeenth century. In the later decades of his career, the 1550s to the 1570s, and as he

9 This letter is reprinted in: J.A. Crowe and G.B. Cavalcaselle, The Life and Times of Titian,

(London: J Murray, 1881), p. 533, from a letter date 9 October 1564, “un monasterio de esta

ciudad esta un quadro de San Lorenzo que hizo el muchos años ha…y los frayles me han dicho

que le dieron por el dozientos escudos y lo copiara por cinquenta Geronimo Ticiano dendo o

criado suyo que estubo en su casa mas de treinta años” (and Girolamo Tiziano would copy it for

fifty ducats, his servant or kinsman who was in his house for more than thirty years). My

translation.

10

Lionello Puppi, Per Tiziano (Milan: Skira, 2004), pp. 27-29. Ridolfi also lists Nadalino da

Murano, Damiano Mazza, Lorenzino, Lamberto Cristoforo, Suarz ed Emanuele, Polidoro

Veneziano and Sante Zago as assistants and students of note who passed through the workshop.

See Carlo Ridolfi, Le Meraviglie dell’Arte, (Milan: Arnaldo Forni, 2002), pp. 284-296.

11

Titian’s plan for the inheritance of his studio by Orazio unfortunately did not work out, as

Orazio died of the plague only a month after his father’s death. Neither Titian nor Orazio left a

will (which is odd) and so the estate passed to Pomponio, the eldest and remaining son of Titian.

He applied to the Giudici del Proprio for recognition as the sole heir without contest and this was

granted October 23, 1576 (see Archivio di Stato Venezia, Quattro Ministeriali, Stride e chiamori,

reg. 174, c. 33r for the document). The following year (1577) the husband of Pomponio’s step-

sister Lavinia, named Cornelio Sarcinelli, obtained a court order against Pomponio and the result

was a protracted fight within the courts that lasted until 1582. For the fullest discussion of the

dispersal of Titian’s estate see Lionello Puppi, Per Tiziano (Milan: Skira, 2004), pp. 61-80; while

Charles Hope, “Titian’s Family and the Dispersal of His Estate,” in Late Titian and the Sensuality

of Painting, ed. Sylvia Ferino-Pagden, (Venice: Marsilio, 2008), pp. 29-42, discusses the issue as

well, but disagrees with Puppi’s interpretation of Pomponio and his motivations.

36

gave greater outside visibility to Orazio and Marco as his heirs apparent, Titian had

developed a fruitful relationship with the King of Spain as his major patron. Philip’s

father, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, had considered Titian as an Apelles to his

Alexander, and it was an association Charles’ son continued as he rounded out a

decorative program for the royal residence of San Lorenzo de El Escorial outside of

Madrid. As one of the first Spanish martyrs to defend the Christian faith, San Lorenzo as

clarissimus atleta fidei was an obvious choice for Philip to dedicate his monastery.

Titian’s original version of the Martyrdom of San Lorenzo had been completed by

1559 for the tomb of Lorenzo Massolo in the church of the Crociferi in Venice (fig. 19).

After receiving a description of it from the secretary to the Spanish Ambassador in

Venice, named García Hernández, Philip reiterated his desire to have his own painting of

the same subject.12

The Archivo Genèral de Simancas holds twenty-four letters that trace

the process of commissioning, negotiation, payment and transportation of this work—

beginning with Philip’s initial letter dated 31 August 1564 telling Hernández to make the

request to Titian. These letters follow the discussion and organization of the project

written between Hernández and Gonzalo Pérez, Philip II’s secretary, Titian to Philip, and

letters to Francisco de Vargas, the Spanish ambassador in Venice who kept an eye of the

progress of the painting.

12

Archivo Genèral de Simancas (AGS), Est. leg. 1325, fol. 45, 416, 9 October 1564; see Note 9

above for quotation regarding Crociferi San Lorenzo, and is also reprinted in Matteo Mancini,

Tiziano e le Corti d’Asburgo: Nei Documenti degli Archivi Spagnoli, (Venice: Istituto Veneto di

Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, 1998), pp. 322-323.

37

It had initially been the friars of the Crociferi who suggested to Hernández that a

copy of their San Lorenzo could be obtained from Girolamo, “y los frailes me han

dicho…lo copiaría por cinquenta Geronimo Ticiano” which he relates in the 9 October

letter.13

Meanwhile, Hernández had already written to Philip the day before (8 October

1564), informing him that Titian would shortly be commissioned for the requested San

Lorenzo as soon as he returned from Brescia.14

Hernández is thorough; he responds to

Philip just to say he will follow the given orders once Titian returns to Venice, and then

immediately writes again the following day to say an additional option for the

commission is possible.

The following week on 15 October, Hernández again wrote to the king to say that

Titian had accepted the commission for El Escorial and he would begin working on it in a

few days time; he also sent a letter to the king’s secretary Gonzalo Pérez, repeating the

same information.15

There are no further developments until mid November, when

between the 16th

and 27th

of the month Hernández, Philip, and the secretary Pérez are

again in contact. Hernández reminds Pérez of his 9 October letter and the possibility of a

13

Archivo Genèral de Simancas (AGS), Est. leg. 1325, fol. 45, 416; also reprinted in Matteo

Mancini, Tiziano e le Corti d’Asburgo: Nei Documenti degli Archivi Spagnoli, (Venice: Istituto

Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, 1998), pp.322-323. My translation.

14

Archivo Genèral de Simancas (AGS), Est. leg. 1325, fol. 44, 412, “Ticiano…y en bolviendo

[volviendo] de Bressa donde fue más ha de XV dias…y le solicitaré que dé principio al del

glorioso Sant Laurencio” Reprinted in Matteo Mancini, Tiziano e le Corti d’Asburgo: Nei

Documenti degli Archivi Spagnoli, (Venice: Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, 1998), p.

321. My translation.

15

Archivo Genèral de Simancas (AGS), Est. leg. 1325, fol. 47, 422 for the letter to Philip, and

Est. leg. 1325, fol. 48, 425 for the letter to Pérez. Reprinted in Matteo Mancini, Tiziano e le Corti

d’Asburgo: Nei Documenti degli Archivi Spagnoli, (Venice: Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed

Arti, 1998), pp. 324-325.

38

copy of the Crociferi San Lorenzo by “Hieronimo Ticiano,” and in the margin of this

letter, Philip makes an interesting notation. He writes, “…yo mandaré que sea con

brevidad y [que] haga sacar del pariente de Ticiano el quadro de Sant Lorenzo por los 50

ducados, y no por esto dexe Ticiano de hazer el otro, más que lo haga que sean

differentes el uno del otro, que desta manera puede haver dos.” He indicates that he

wants both paintings as soon as possible—the new original by Titian, and the copy of the

Crociferi version to be commissioned from Titian’s assistant Girolamo for 50 ducats.

Philip adds the caveat that “this does not mean that Titian should cease working on the

other one [the new version]; rather, he should see to it that they are different from each

other, as that way there will be two.”16

Philip is clear and specific in his request; he

wants two paintings, and this is critical to note. A new, original composition of the

Martyrdom of San Lorenzo painted by Titian, and a copy of the 1559 version painted by

his former assistant Girolamo.

Between November 1564 and December 1565—just over an entire year—there

continues a series of correspondence from Philip to his agents expressing both his

eagerness and impatience to receive the painting from Titian. For his part, Titian’s letters

are vague and evasive regarding the progress he is making, but clear and direct when

asking the king to settle the money he is owed from prior jobs. The painter is shrewd;

Titian knows he is in a position to make demands because he possesses a talent few

others can provide. He laments, “…mi è stata ritenuta la somma di alcune annate, sì

16

Archivo Genèral de Simancas (AGS), Est. leg. 1325, fol. 51; reprinted in Matteo Mancini,


Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, 1998), pp. 327-328. My translation.

39

ch’io vengo a patire cotal incomodo, oltra che nel pagamento del restante mi è stata

assignata una tratta di riso, della quale volendone cavar dinaro, mi è convenuto perder più

di centro ducati” but then concludes, “Intanto andrò riducendo a compimento la pittura

del beato Lorenzo, la quale credo che sarà di sodisfattione alla Maestà Vostra Alla cui

buona gatia humilmente mi raccoomando.”17

Titian later promised to finish the painting

by Lent 1566, but when Vasari visited his house in Biri Grande on the northern edge of

Cannaregio at that exact time, he noted seeing the picture and says that it is only

“abbozzate e cominciate” –sketched out and just begun—and far from finished.18

Finally, in December 1567 the painting is delivered to the Spanish consul in

Venice, Tomás de Zornoza. By this point, Hernández has died and the Ambassador de

Vargas has been reassigned. Zornoza duly packs the San Lorenzo and another picture, a

Venere ignuda, off to Genoa to be shipped onward to Madrid. They remain stored in

Genoa at the home of Ambassador Juan Gómez Suárez de Figueroa until May 1568,

17

Archivo Genèral de Simancas (AGS), Est. leg. 1324, fol. 237, 440. Titian complains that he

was paid in rice on his last commission and it was inconvenient, due to low resale value, but

despite this he will go on to complete the San Lorenzo. Reprinted in Matteo Mancini, Tiziano e

le Corti d’Asburgo: Nei Documenti degli Archivi Spagnoli, (Venice: Istituto Veneto di Scienze,

Lettere ed Arti, 1998), p. 335. My translation. The spelling is Titan’s own.

18

Titian’s promise to complete the San Lorenzo by Lent 1566 is mentioned in a letter to Philip

from Hernández, Archivo Genèral de Simancas (AGS), Est. leg. 1325, fol. 210 minuta,

“entendimos lo que os dixo Ticiano que en toda esta quaresma acabaría el quadro de Sant

Lorencio, de que holgamos y assí se lo agradescereis de mi parte y le solicitareis si fuere

menester, y en estando en perfection me le embiareis puesto de su mano, a todo buen recaudo.”

Reprinted in Matteo Mancini, Tiziano e le Corti d’Asburgo: Nei Documenti degli Archivi

Spagnoli, (Venice: Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, 1998), p. 340. My translation.

Vasari’s comment in full reads, “ha in casa l’infrascritte abbozzante, e comincate, il Martirio di

San Lorenzo simile al sopradetto, il quale disegna mandare al Re Cattolico.” Giorgio Vasari, Vite

de' più eccellenti pittori scultori e architetti, (Siena: Pazzini Carli, 1793), v. IX, p. 279.

40

when safe passage was assured aboard a vessel owned by the Duke of Savoy and

captained by Antonio Doria. Figueroa assures Philip that the paintings remained in the

cases they arrived in from Venice and have not been touched. They made port in

Barcelona harbor in July, and finally are delivered to the Alcázar palace in Madrid for the

king’s inspection at the end of the summer, 1568. They are not installed in El Escorial

however, until April 1574.19

With such a full correspondence detailing the progress of the San Lorenzo

commission, it is interesting to note that after Philip’s decision to also commission a copy

of the Crociferi version from the assistant, Girolamo Tiziano, no mention is made of that

second painting anywhere again in any of the correspondence. There is no indication of

another San Lorenzo in either the palace inventories or the main sources related to El

Escorial, nor is there any question regarding its completion or its whereabouts made by

Philip to any of his agents, or from any of his agents to Titian or Girolamo.20

It is

19

For Titian’s explanation for the delay and inclusion of the second painting in the shipment, see

Archivo Genèral de Simancas (AGS), Est. leg. 1326, fol. 319, 456; for receipt of the paintings by

Zornoza and his sending them to Genoa see Archivo Genèral de Simancas (AGS), Est. leg. 1326,

fol. 38, 461; for Philip’s concern for the paintings care and cost of the shipment, see Archivo

Genèral de Simancas (AGS), Casa y Sitios Reales leg. 258, fol. 14, 464 and Archivo Genèral de

Simancas (AGS), Est. leg. 1397, fol. 21, 465; safekeeping in the ambassador’s residence, Archivo

Genèral de Simancas (AGS), Est. leg. 1397, fol. 24; the paintings untouched condition and travel

arrangements, Archivo Genèral de Simancas (AGS), Est. leg. 1397, fol. 48; arrival in Barcelona,

Archivo Genèral de Simancas (AGS), Est. leg. 1397, fol. 67; confirmation to Genoa of arrival,

Archivo Genèral de Simancas (AGS), Est. leg. 1397, fol. 79. Reprinted in Matteo Mancini,


Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, 1998), pp. 343-354.

20

See Fr. Patricio de la Torre, “Inventario de los efectos que se ban recogiendo en Madrid

pertenecientes al Real Monasterio de San Lorenzo del Escorial,” Ciudad de Dios, 76, (1908);

Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez, Pittura italiana del siglo XVII en España, (Madrid: Fundación

Valdecilla, 1965).

41

entirely possible that after waiting four years for the painting from Titian—which took

precedence—the requested copy was simply forgotten. The painting, if there ever was

one, is conspicuously absent. Yet Philip had been clear in noting his instructions and the

importance of his wishes to Hernández and Pérez that he wanted two paintings; that they

should differ from one another, and that Titian should “see to it” himself, providing the

king with a new composition of the same subject.

Comparing the El Escorial Martyrdom of San Lorenzo (fig. 20) with the Crociferi

version in Venice clearly shows a superficial difference between the settings depicted in

the martyrdom of the saint, while the majority of other features remain the same. The

positioning and number of the main figures in the foreground mimics those of the Venice

picture, as does the plinth and statue of Minerva. The immediate difference is that the

Crociferi Martyrdom places the scene squarely in an urban Roman setting at the base of a

flight of stairs, at the top of which figures emerge from between the building’s columns.

The El Escorial San Lorenzo architecture is more obtuse and unidentified; a large arch

frames the suggestion of craggy landscape beyond, with the outline of a figure looking

toward the source of firelight out in the dark. Two putti hang suspended over Lorenzo

(rather frozen in place), and a waxing moon shines just below the arch (fig. 21). The

Venice picture is a pala painting, arched at the top and fitted for the altar of the Crociferi,

while the other is a more versatile large rectangle that was eventually hung on the high

altar in the Old Church of El Escorial, where it has remained.21

21

The painting was installed at El Escorial on 15 April 1574, see AGP. Patronatos, San Lorenzo,

leg. 1995, Entrega Primera, 1574, fol. 196, “A large canvas of the martyrdom of St. Lawrence at

night, by Titian…which is sixteen feet high and thirteen feet wide, which serves as an altarpiece

42

The Patrimonio Nacional, Madrid published the most current documentation

based on technical findings from the cleaning and restoration completed on the painting

in 2003.22

They tactfully, but unconvincingly reiterate their claim that the El Escorial

San Lorenzo was painted entirely by Titian himself, and a masterpiece of his later years

on par with the Flaying of Marsyas. I would like to suggest several points to refute this

claim, positing instead the authorship of Girolamo Tiziano as the dominant hand in the

work.23

It is my belief that while Titian may have started to lay out the new composition

of Philip’s San Lorenzo, which may have been what Vasari saw during his visit in 1566,

he did not finish it. Instead, it was Girolamo Tiziano’s commissioned copy of the

for the main altar of the said church,” printed in Fr. Jose de Sigüenza, La Fundación del

Monasterio de El Escorial (1605), (Madrid: Aguilar, 1988), p. 52. See also G. de Andrés,

“Relación anónima del siglo XVII sobre los cuadros del Escorial (h. 1698),” Archvio Español de

Arte, (1971), p. 63; A. Custodio Vega, “Verdadero orden de las pinturas del Escorial en los sitios

que están colocadas con los nombres de sus autores. Año 1776,” Documentos para la historia del

Monasterio de San Lorenzo el Real de El Escorial, (1962), pp. 260-262; Fr. D. Bermejo,

Descripción artistic del Real Monasterio de San Lorenzo de El Escorial y sus curiosidades

después de la invasion de los franceses (Madrid, 1820), p. 207; V. Álvarez, Descripción del

Monasterio de El Escorial, (Madrid, 1843), p. 179; V. Poleró, Catálogo de los cuadros del Real

Monasterio de San Lorenzo Ilamado de El Escorial, (Madrid, 1857), p. 114, no. 471.

22

Carmen García-Frías Checa and Esperanza Rodríguez-Arana Muñoz, Tiziano y el Martirio de

San Lorenzo de El Escorial: Consideraciones historic-artísticas y técnicas tras su restauración,

(Madrid: Patrimonio Nacional, 2003).

23

The authors of Tiziano y el Martirio de San Lorenzo, p. 92 cite several modern critics to

substantiate and verify their claim including: Wilhelm Suida, Titian, (Paris: A Weber, 1935), p.

134; Hans Tietze, Titian. Leben und Werk, (Vienna: Phaidon, 1936), I, p. 238 and II, p. 288;

Francesco Valcanover, L’opera complete di Tiziano, (Milan: Rizzoli, 1969), p. 133; A. Cloulas,

“Les peintures du gran retable au Monastère de l’Escurial,” Mélanges de la casa de Veláquez, IV,

(1968), pp. 176-179; Charles Hope, Titian, (New York: Harper and Row, 1980), pp. 146-147,

149, 160; Fernando Checa, Felipe II, mecenas de las artes, (Madrid: Nerea, 1992), p. 345.

However they do note one voice of slight dissent: Harold Wethey, who in his Paintings of Titian:

Complete Edition, vol. 1, (London: Phaidon, 1969), pp. 140-141, no. 115 expresses his belief that

Titian was assisted in his undertaking of the Escorial San Lorenzo by Girolamo Tiziano, although

concedes it must have been painted under Titian’s direct supervision.

43

Crociferi version that was modified from its copied work and delivered as Titian’s new

original composition. This idea is supported by the x-radiographic evidence provided by

the Patrimonio Nacional, Madrid; in fact they attempt to gloss over the discrepancy

between their findings and their claim of Titian’s authorship by stating, “…Titian, as

commissioned by Philip II, started off by copying the composition of the Martyrdom of

San Lorenzo he did for the church of the Gesuiti in Venice and subsequently altered it

several times.”24

From the archival documents referenced above, there is no indication,

nor any need for Titian to have copied the Venetian picture. Indeed, he had explicit

instructions, written by Philip, to create an image entirely different from the original

version. Certainly he could have begun to work up the canvas with a compositional

outline similar to that of the Crociferi—in the very least to get started. The x-ray imaging

done by the Escorial in fact shows that the painting beneath the current image mirrors the

Crociferi painting beyond a rough outline. It is, rather, a mostly finished copy that sits

below a slightly altered version above.

I suggest that it was Girolamo who made the copy and then retouched it to alter

the details slightly, perhaps directed by Titian to change one thing or another, but

performing the work himself. As the conservation scientist notes, paint layers are built

up in the middle right of the painting, obscuring an architectural structure that follows the

form of a flight of steps and columned portico found in the original (fig. 22).

Additionally, the pose of San Lorenzo initially mimicked the first rendition with both legs

24

Esperanza Rodríguez-Arana Muñoz, “The Restoration of Titian’s Martyrdom of St Lawrence,”

in Tiziano y el Martirio de San Lorenzo de El Escorial: Consideraciones historic-artísticas y

técnicas tras su restauración, (Madrid: Patrimonio Nacional, 2003), p. 105.

44

extended; the right leg of the figure was then re-adjusted to bend at the knee and pulled

closer to the torso (fig. 23). The result is awkward at best and doesn’t change the overall

composition in any explicit way. Other than these two modifications, the rest of the

picture is an almost exact copy of the Crociferi version. There are three main figures to

the left of the saint; all posed in the same way standing in front of the same plinth with

the same statue pointed in the same direction as the original. Even the type of torch

brazier is the same. The only differences are that a torch has been added to the bas-relief

of the plinth (which mimics the decoration of the original plinth) and that one of the

figures is now wearing a red hat. To the right of the saint there are still five figures,

although a small boy has been added, but again the poses are almost exactly the same.

The horse on the far right of the picture plane has changed direction and his rider given

contemporary dress; otherwise it is again the same. Through the archway, a shadowy

figure appearing only in outline holds a staff—in the exact pose of the figure which

emerges from between the columns of the Crociferi painting. Indeed, the area where he

stands is precisely where the x-radiography shows there was a similar architecture of

stairs painted in and then repainted as landscape (fig. 24).

The painting has all the trademark components of a work by Titian; the painterly

manner, the loose handling of the brushwork, the anatomical form and figural

composition of the characters in their setting. But upon closer inspection, and in

comparison with the original painting in Venice, the differences in quality are glaring

while the actual composition becomes more evidently similar. Careful scrutiny reveals

sloppy handling and quickly dashed passages; the musculature of the executioners back

45

for example, is muddy and undefined, while the details added to the soldiers to give them

a Spanish flavor seem almost too deliberate. It is my belief that Titian, after continued

pressure to produce the San Lorenzo picture for Philip II, went to Girolamo who had

already begun his copy and told him to alter it to appear slightly different—thus fulfilling

the requirement. They then sent Girolamo’s finished work to Madrid as Titian’s,

accompanied by the extra painting of the Nude Venus as mollification for their tardiness.

Obviously, there is no documentation to prove this conjecture, but it deserves

consideration. I can add one extra bit of credence to this idea; in his Life of Polidoro

Veneziano, Ridolfi tells us: “…these different followers of Titian; they recalled that when

he used to go out of the house he would hide the keys to the room of his masterpieces.

But not long after his leaving they [the followers] would make copies of the beautiful

works with one as a lookout. After some time, Titian recognized these copies and

collected them, retouched with his hand, and so many things made by disciples became

the hand of the master.”25

It is not inconceivable to believe the same thing happened with the San Lorenzo

commission; indeed, the precedence had already been set and within the structure of the

workshop was considered entirely acceptable. When the copy of the San Lorenzo was

offered in 1564, Girolamo Tiziano was likely working out of his own bottega and no

25

“Furono I detti discepoli in poco differente tempo in casa di Tiziano; e si racconta che

nell’uscir ch’egli faceva di casa, lasciava a belle posta le chiavi nel camerone dove teneva le cose

pregiate, ma non tantosto partito, quelli si davano a far copie delle opera piu belle, stando un di

loro alla scrota. Poscia a qualche temp ravvisando Tiziano I quadri, raccoglieva le copie fatte

da’discepoli, le quail da lui ritocche passavano come di sua mano; e di qui e che molte cose dei

discepoli si stimano del maestro” from Carlo Ridolfi, Le Meraviglie dell’Arte, (Milan: Arnaldo

Forni, 2002), vol. 1, pp. 294, my translation.

46

longer on Titian’s staff, but that does not negate their collaboration on filling the order

that was requested. If it suggests anything, it is that Girolamo produced the painting

without Titian’s direct supervision, perhaps only at the end touching up passages and

making corrections together. As a competent and well-trained assistant for many years,

Titian would have trusted Girolamo’s abilities.26

The Vecellio family was following a method of workshop consolidation that had

been established for generations, for better or worse; the Quattrocento families of the

Vivarini and Bellini had managed their botteghe in similar fashion. Antonio Vivarini

collaborated with his brother Bartolomeo and son Alvise; Gentile Bellini became head of

his father’s shop after his death in 1471, inheriting the entire artistic inventory including

Jacopo Bellini’s sketchbooks. After Gentile’s death in 1507 these passed to his younger

brother Giovanni, who subsequently passed them on to his nephew Vittore Belliniano.27

The Cinquecento families of Bassano, Veronese and Tintoretto organized their

workshops the same way. Francesco Bassano (c. 1475—1539) was the father of

26

Erica Tietze-Conrat, “Titian’s Workshop in his Late Years,” The Art Bulletin, 28, (1946), pp.

76-88, points out the passage from Ridolfi and her comments support my argument regarding

copying and collaboration under the master’s supervision and outside the workshop. Also,

Harold Wethey, Paintings of Titian: Complete Edition, vol. 1, (London: Phaidon, 1969), pp. 140-

141, no. 115 suggests a similar interpretation of events though he concedes his point in the face of

opposition.

27

John Steer, Alvise Vivarini: His Art and Influence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

1982); L. Grassi, ‘La “mano industriosa” di Jacopo Bellini nei disegni dei suoi due libri,” Atti e

memorie - Accademia clementina, 30–31, (1992), pp. 9–37; C. L. Joost-Gaugier, “Considerations

Regarding Jacopo Bellini’s Place in the Venetian Renaissance,” Arte Veneta, 28, (1974), pp. 21–

38. This sort of business arrangement was not limited to painters; other artisans organized their

shops in a similar manner, see Anne Markham Schulz, “The Sculpture of Giovanni and

Bartolomeo Bon and Their Workshop,” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society,

New Series, 68, (1978), pp. 1-81.

47

Giambattista Bassano (1517—1548) who worked directly as his assistant, and Jacopo

Bassano (c. 1510—1592), who after his father’s death took the lead in the bottega.

Jacopo Bassano had four sons, two of whom, Francesco Bassano, il giovane (1549—

1592) and Leandro Bassano, (1557—1622) had considerable success as painters in

Venice. The other two, Giambattista Bassano (1553—1613) and Gerolamo Bassano,

(1566—1621) were artists of more modest ability serving as support staff. Giambattista

was known mainly for his copies of Jacopo’s work.28

Benedetto Caliari (1538—1598)

was the younger brother of Paolo Caliari (1528—1588), called Veronese; both sons of a

sculptor. He worked as an assistant in Veronese’s studio as did Paolo’s sons, Carletto

(1470—1596) and Gabriele (1568—1631). After 1588 they ran the workshop together

with their uncle, completing unfinished paintings and working in Veronese’s style;

signing their works, Haeredes Pauli Veronensis, “heirs of Paolo Veronese.”29

28

Andrea Moschetti, “Un dipinto di Francesco da Ponte il Vecchio,” Bolletino Museo Civico

Padova, 3, (1927), pp. 71; William R. Rearick, “J. Bassano 1568–9,” Burlington Magazine, 54,

(1962), pp. 524–533; L. Alberton Vinco da Sesso and F. Signori, “Il testamento di J. Bassano,”

Arte Veneta, 33, (1979), pp. 161–164; Bernard Aikema, Jacopo Bassano and his Public:

Moralizing Pictures in an Age of Reform, ca. 1535–1600 (Princeton: Princeton University Press,

1996); Michelangelo Muraro, “Gli affreschi di Jacopo e Francesco da Ponte a Cartigliano,” Arte

Veneta, 6, (1952), pp. 42–62; Lionello Puppi, “Da essersi buttato giù d’un balcon per fernesia”: la

sfida impossibile di Francesco Dal Ponte,” Arte Documento, 12, (1998), pp. 86–93; T. Fomiciova,

“I dipinti di Jacopo Bassano e dei suoi figli Francesco e Leandro nella collezione dell’Ermitage,”

Arte Veneta, 35, (1981), pp. 89–94.

29

Wilhelm E. Suida, “Paolo Veronese and His Circle: Some Unpublished Works,” Art Quarterly,

8, (1945), p. 175; David Rosand, “Veronese and Company: Artistic Production in a Venetian

Workshop,” Veronese and His Studio in North American Collections, Birmingham Museum of

Art, (10/1-11/15, 1972), pp. 5-11; Diana Gisolfi, “Collaboration and Replicas in the Shop of

Paolo Veronese and His Heirs,” Artibus et Historiae, 28, Special Articles in Memory of W.R.

Rearick (1930—2004), Part 1, (2007), pp. 73-86; John Garton, “Paolo Veronese’s Art of

Business: Painting, Investment, and the Studio as Social Nexus,” Renaissance Quarterly, 65,

(2012), pp. 753-808.

48

Of no less familial complexity was the Tintoretto shop, which will be discussed in

greater detail later in this chapter. Jacopo Tintoretto (1519—1594) employed an

amorphous group of painters, including Giovanni Galizzi, Antonio Vassilacchi, called

l’Aliense, Lionardo Corona and Andrea Michieli, along with several Netherlandish

artists, including Marten de Vos (1532—1603), Pauwels Francke and Lodewyk Toeput,

called Pozzoserrato. His children, Domenico (1560—1635), Marco (d. 1637), and his

daughter Marietta (1554—1590) were all painters and foremost among his assistants.

Domenico would go on to lead the shop after Jacopo’s death, bequeathing it and all of its

contents to his brother-in-law Sebastiano Casser upon his own death. The husband of his

sister Ottavia, Casser had entered the workshop as a condition of his marriage contract.

As another example, in his will of 1627, Palma il Giovane bequeathed his studio

to his ten year old grandson and expressed the wish that he assume the name of Palma.30

Philip Cottrell describes Palma as a painter of social and artistic pretension, suggesting

that his effort to associate himself closely with Titian’s workshop and his obsession with

his great uncle and namesake could be seen as way of denying he had actually been

named for his maternal grandfather, Jacopo Brunello—who had been a basket maker.31

Venetian society itself was divided into a rigid hierarchy of castes: the patriciate,

known as zentilhuomini, composed of families that had been active in the Great Council

for four years prior to the Serrata (the closure of the Great Council) in 1297; the cittadini,

30

Stefania Mason, Palma il Giovane, L’opera completa, (Milan: Electa, 1984), p. 70

31

See Philip Cottrell, “The Artistic Parentage of Palma Giovane,” The Burlington Magazine, 144,

(2002), pp. 289-291, specifically p. 291 for his suggestion.

49

or citizens, divided between originarii and ordinarii, and who could prove that neither

themselves, their fathers nor grandfathers had earned a living through manual labour; and

the popolani that comprised the remaining ninety percent of the populace with

occupations that ranged from wealthy merchants and artisans to shopkeepers, lawyers and

unskilled labourers. These were social and political groups—not economic distinctions.

Although mobility between social rank was extremely restricted it should be noted that it

was not impossible; just as it is important to recognize that while there were many poor

noble families, there were even more rich families who were not noble.32

However, among all Venetian families no matter their social station, the same

modus operandi of family structure was at work. The dominant form of business

partnership was the fraterna, or “brotherhood.” All the property inherited would be

entered into account books and inventory ledgers along with expenses, and shared jointly.

Since painting was considered manual labour, artists generally counted among the ranks

of the popolani. The seventeenth century did see several painters who were members of

the nobility by right of birth: Giovanni Contarini, Andrea Visentini and Angelo Trevisani.

Dario and Alessandro Varotari (Padovanino) came from Paduan nobility, while Claudio

Ridolfi and Dario Dal Pozzo came from the Veronese nobility.33

These were exceptions

to the rule.

32

Patricia Fortini Brown, Private Lives in Renaissance Venice, (New Haven: Yale University

Press, 2004), chapter 1; Brian Pullan, “Wage-Earners and the Venetian Economy, 1550-1630,”

The Economic History Review, 16, (1964), pp. 407-426.

33

Philip Sohm and Richard Spear, Painting for Profit, (New Haven: Yale University Press,

2010), p. 227

50

While the majority of painters ranked among the popolani, as noted above, that

did not always indicate poverty. On the contrary, based on the average commissions paid

for history paintings, taxes levied, and the amount of rent paid, by the second half of the

seventeenth century forty-one percent of painters were considered rich or wealthy.34

Like

their patrician counterparts, brothers and their wives and children either shared the same

household or at least kept within close proximity to one another. Homes tended to also

double as studios, providing a literal “in-house” education. While children of rich artists

who did not follow their parent’s profession showed an upward mobility in their

marriages, those children that did become painters tended to marry into the families of

other painters or related professions.

34


2010), p. 235, Table 27 for average prices for paintings, p. 217, Table 18 for taxes, pp. 252-253,

Apendix 2 for rents paid by artist and location.

51

2. Methodology, Influence, and Production

In 1548 Paolo Pino observed of Venetian painting that “the things pertaining to

coloring are infinite and it is impossible to explain them with words.”35

Despite his

apparent inability to articulate the complexities and subtlety of the Venetian coloring

technique, Pino’s statement was apt. It would be this very problem of definition that

would continue to vex subsequent art theorists in their attempt to contextualize the

nuances of Venetian painting practice and pin down how that sense of “otherness,”

mentioned earlier, was expressed. Any good undergraduate student of Italian

Renaissance art quickly learns the debate between disegno (drawing) versus colorito

(coloring) as the pre-eminent artistic ability, and conveniently tends to identify Florentine

and Venetian paintings by these respective monikers. But art is never created within a

void, and while it is easy to categorize paintings off a checklist of attributes, doing so

often ignores the deeper issues at work.

Venetian artists did draw; certainly the wealth of drawings they left behind is a

testament to that fact. But perhaps it is better to qualify their use of the medium by

saying that the role which drawings played in their creative process differed from other

schools, rather than to suggest that they disregarded its use altogether. Venetian

draftsmanship is, and was, admired for its luminosity, freedom of handling and

35

Paolo Pino, Dialogo di pittura in Trattati d’arte del Cinquecento, ed. by Paola Barocchi (Bari:

Laterza, 1960-62), p. 117. The original Italian reads, “Sono infinite le cose appertinenti al

colorire et impossibil è isplicarle con parole…”

52

sensuousness, but there has been a widespread perception that the intellectual interests

that accompanied disegno were lacking.36

Giorgio Vasari’s 1550 publication of the Vite, or Lives of the Artists, championed

the concept of disegno, and stood as counterpoint to the Venetian concept of colorito.

The two major schools of the Italian Cinquecento, the Roman-Florentine and the

Venetian, were divided by the level of importance to which they assigned the ideas of

disegno and colorito in the artistic process. As one of the most active and vocal of

advocates for disegno, Vasari stated clearly the critical foundation drawing played within

the entire production procedure from initial idea to final execution. He tracked this

progress with each subsequent biography of the Vite, beginning with Giotto and ending in

the penultimate abilities of Michelangelo.37

Despite his allegiance to the Florentine model however, Vasari was compelled to

acknowledge the achievements of the Venetian school and its own Herculean

36

Catherine Whistler, “Life Drawing in Venice from Titian to Tiepolo,” Master Drawings, 42,

(2004), pp. 370-396 offers an excellent discussion of these issues, see p. 370 for this particular

sentiment. See also Lee Rensselaer, Ut Pictura Poesis: The Humanistic Theory of Painting,

(New York: Norton, 1967) and Linda Bauer, “’Quanto si disegna, si dipinge ancora:’ Some

Observations on the Development of the Oil Sketch,” Storia dell’Arte, 32, (1978), pp. 46-51for

development of drawing concepts.

37

Actually, The Lives begins with Cimabue and ends with Luca Signorelli, but for the sake of

making a more sweeping statement of recognition I name Giotto and Michelangelo as bookends.

Scholarship on Vasari and his work, both written and visual, is extensive so I list only several of

particular interest: Hellmut Wohl, “The Eye of Vasari,” Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen

Institutes in Florenz, 30, Bd., H. 3, (1986), pp. 537-568; Andrew Ladis, Victims and Villains in

Vasari's Lives, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008); Paul Barolsky, “What

Are We Reading When We Read Vasari?,” Source: Notes in the History of Art, 22, (2002), pp.

33-35; Hayden B. J. Maginnis, “Matters of Money: Vasari on Early Italian Artists,” Source:

Notes in the History of Art, 14, (1994), pp. 6-9; and of course, Juergen Schulz, “Vasari at

Venice,” The Burlington Magazine, 103, (1961), pp. 500-509+511.

53

representative in the figure of Titian. After his 1566 visit the Republic (when he saw the

unfinished San Lorenzo in Titian’s studio), Vasari published a second edition of the Vite

in 1568, including those northern Italian artists he deemed worthy of historical

recognition. In the meantime Venetian artists had found their own theoretical champions;

first, in the person of Lodovico Dolce, who had published his Dialogo della pittura in

1557 and was successful in his apologia for Titian and his claim on the mastery of perfect

colorito. For Dolce the ability of an artist to form the soft contours of the body and of

nature was the real test of skill.38

And second, Carlo Ridolfi, who despite publishing his

Lives of the Venetian Artists almost a century after Vasari, was critical in cementing and

acknowledging the importance of the Venetian school beyond the Veneto region.

The skills highlighted by Dolce were especially evident in the work of Giorgione,

who by building up his pigments from a brown or middle ground rather than a white

gesso base, was able to pull his figures out of the shadows of the spatial plane while

simultaneously blurring their edges as they would appear in real space. This tonalism

was further articulated by Giorgione’s literal acknowledgement of the surface on which

he painted; the canvas itself and the brushstroke over the weave were used to the

advantage of added animation and depth. The practice of painting directly onto the

canvas without the use of prior design, a method continued by later Venetian

38

Thomas Puttfarken, “The Dispute about Disegno and Colorito in Venice: Paolo Pino, Ludovico

Dolce and Titian,” in Kunst und Kunsttheorie 1400-1900 (Wolfenbüttel, 1991), pp. 74-100;

Juergen Schulz, “Vasari at Venice,” The Burlington Magazine, 103, (1961), pp. 500-509+511.

See David Rosand, “Titian and the Eloquence of the Brush,” Artibus et Historiae, 2, (1981), pp.

85-96 for a full discussion on Venetian brushwork.

54

Cinquecento masters such as Titian, was seen by Vasari to be a fundamental error

regardless of Giorgione’s position as a painter of the modern era.39

It is worth noting again that the fabric of Venetian society, and in particular the

strictures of the Arti dei Depentori, or Painter’s Guild, discouraged the type of academy

environment that had been present in Florence since the inception of the Accademia delle

Arti del Disegno there in 1563, or the Bolognese Accademia degli Incamminati founded

in 1582. Simply put, the Venetian guild system maintained the autonomy of the

disciplines of painting, sculpture and architecture, and without their cross-pollination

Venetian artists were considered by outside critics to be at a disadvantage. Grounded in

mathematics and perspective and with the formative presence of classical texts for

reference, architecture was the thinking man’s art. The very nature of architecture

demanded the ability to draw, and to draw accurately and precisely in order to articulate

the thought and expression behind the design. Working in fresco had similar

requirements; due to the nature of the medium it was necessary to know the exact layout

of the image before beginning work with the use of cartoons, otherwise the project could

be ruined. Fresco was not an effective medium in Venice because of the atmospheric and

environmental detractors of salt and humidity; thus the preparatory practice did not hold

the same importance in the education of a Venetian apprentice as it did for a Florentine.

Venetians also supplanted large scale frescos with the use of canvas; by 1474 onward

39

David Rosand, Painting in Sixteenth Century Venice: Titian, Veronese, Tintoretto (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 12-14, also Rosand, “Giorgione e il concetto della

creazione artistica,” in Giorgione: Atti del Convegno Internazionale di Studio per il 5˚ Centenario

della Nascita (Castelfranco Veneto, 1979), pp. 135-139.

55

they had gradually begun to dominate and replace damaged works in the showcase of the

Palazzo Ducale.40

Conceptual drawing was not unknown in Venice however; the drawing books of

Jacopo Bellini are testament to the importance of passing on design models and ideas to

successive workshop generations (fig. 25).41

The cartoons of Titian for paintings in

multiple, the Danae for example, acted as models in the studio for assistants to work

from, and certainly from Ridolfi’s anecdote mentioned earlier we know this to be true.42

40

Michelangelo Muraro, Pitture murali nel Veneto e tecnica dell’affresco (Venezia: Pozza,

1960), and David Rosand, Painting in Sixteenth Century Venice: Titian, Veronese, Tintoretto

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 11-12.

41

Jacopo Bellini’s two books of drawings are in the British Museum and the Louvre. The British

set is done in leadpoint on paper, while the Louvre drawings are on vellum, made 1430-60. The

Louvre drawings are mostly executed in drypoint, with pen additions whose origin remains

unclear. Bellini's sketchbooks do not set out to tell a story or explore a coherent theme; there is no

link between the various subjects represented in either group. Neither are they preliminary

studies: the drawings are works of intrinsic value, among the earliest examples of the use of the

medium to create works of art in their own right. The subjects represent a mix of the sacred and

the secular, with a particular interest in scenes of Venetian life. Architecture often plays a leading

role, sometimes to the point of obscuring the picture's ostensible subject matter. Bellini's

drawings exploit his immediate environment while at the same time re-working motifs and

themes from classical antiquity. The British set remained in Venice, eventually passing into the

Vendramin collection and eventually to G.B. Mantovani from whom the museum purchased them

in 1855. The provenance of the Louvre set is more traveled; from Jacopo and his widow Anna

Rinvers they were inherited by Gentile Bellini, his son, in 1471, and taken by him to

Constantinople in 1479 where they were presented or sold to Sultan Mehmed II. Eventually they

were rediscovered in Smyrna in 1728, entered the Marquis de Sabran-Pontevès Collection, and

were acquired by the Louvre in 1884.Which is very lucky for the rest of us. See Hans Tietze and

Erica Tietze Conrat, The Drawings of the Venetian Painters in the 15th and 16th Centuries, (New

York: Collectors Editions, 1970), pp. 106-11, no. 364; E. Carli, "Jacopo Bellini, l'Album dei

disegni del Louvre,” Antichità Viva, XXIII, (1984), nos. 4-5, p. 65; Terisio Pignatti, "L'Album dei

disegni del Louvre di Jacopo Bellini," Arte Veneta, XL, (1986), pp. 242-243; Colin Eisler, The

Genius of Jacopo Bellini: The Complete Paintings and Drawings, (New York: Harry N. Abrams

Inc, Publishers, 1989).

42

See the recent publication by Miguel Falomir, Titian: Danaë y Venus y Adonis: Las primeras

poesie, Boletin del Museo del Prado, (Madrid: Museo Nacional del Prado, 2014) for an in-depth

discussion of the production of multiples by the Titian workshop, particularly this painting.

56

The move made from fresco and panel onto canvas by Venetian painters, along with the

use of oil rather than tempera, allowed for the constant re-working of an image in

subsequent and modified layers. Correcting and adjusting the composition over the

course of its execution rendered the need for systematic preparatory drawing

unnecessary, turning the practice from a means to an end into a place to explore ideas and

work out problems. For example, Jacopo Tintoretto would on occasion use grids on his

drawings; to understand bodily proportion and observe the balance of limbs or to

comprehend different aspects of the formal qualities of the composition.43

Such is the

case with a study for the Allegory of Fortune (Felicita) on the ceiling of the Albergo in

the Scuola San Rocco (fig. 26). Of further interest is the fact that the painted figure is

clothed, while the study is in the nude (and most likely a male model) (fig. 27). Here,

Tintoretto appears to be solving the problem of how to fold the extremities of his figure

into the available space and the location and relationship between elbows and knees—

even though in the final product they are covered—he still needs to know where they will

be. His study of Venus and Mars Surprised by Vulcan (fig. 28) serves a different

purpose; without the use of gridlines, he is playing out an idea for a composition that

does not include all the final details, but notes how his subjects and storyline will

ultimately be expressed (fig. 29).

43

Lucy Whitaker, “Tintoretto’s Drawings after Sculpture and his Workshop Practice,” The

Sculpted Object: 1400-1700, Stuart Currie and Peta Motture, eds., (Aldershot: Scolar Press,

1997), pp. 177-191 and William R. Rearick, “From Drawing to Painting: The Role of ‘Disegno’

in the Tintoretto Shop,” Jacopo Tintoretto nel quarto centenario della morte: Atti del convegno

internationale di Studi, Venice, November 1994, eds. Paola Rossi and Lionello Puppi, (Venice: Il

poligrafio and Quaderni di Venezia arte, 1996), pp. 173-181 discuss the use of gridlines.

57

The acts of painting and drawing became mutually exclusive, with one being an

aid more than an absolute guide.44

Venetians tended to draw the way they painted—with

loose fluid strokes rather than hard edges and delineated contours. The “out of the box”

hard edged colors that filled in the outlined forms of Florentine and Roman painters were

blurred and softened by the Venetian brush into a flexible contour of form more

appropriate to nature and human flesh. Dolce demanded of the painter “una certa

convenevole sprezzatura,” where colorito is an additive process of a swift hand over the

surface.45

He goes on to assert that the excellence of Art is the ability to hide art,

suggesting that it is not the technical function and specificity that qualifies an image but

instead the effortlessness of the artist to make that image. If the viewer is aware of how

or what the trick is composed of, then the magic—the art—or sleight of hand, is lost.

Despite Vasari’s criticisms on their perceived lack of artistic education, the

Venetian masters of the Cinquecento appeared undeterred in their output and bolstered by

their own success. It was not until the end of the century and the opening of the next that

any sense of stylistic stagnation began to emerge. The younger generation of assistants

and students coming from the studios of Titian, Veronese, Bassano and Tintoretto were

left with a rich inheritance but an equally large sense of duty. The responsibility of that

heritage and the need to expand upon it set up a formula of failure in the eyes of many

44


Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 17, and especially the entirety of Rosand’s Drawing Acts:

Studies in Graphic Expression and Representation, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press,

2002) for an exploration of “what does drawing signify?”

45

Lodovico Dolce, “Dialogo della pittura,” in Trattati d'arte del Cinquecento, fra manierismo e

Controriforma, ed. Paola Barocchi, (Bari, G. Laterza, 1960-62), p. 149.

58

later critics, as the production quality of those successors fell short of their master’s

initial innovation.

Looking to the stylistic developments arising in Bologna and Rome, early

Seicento artists in the Veneto sought to engage and transform their Renaissance tradition,

questioning aesthetic attitudes and attempting to redefine their social position to more

modern standards.46

The traditional values and order of the Venetian painter’s guild

discouraged innovation—however progress was precisely what was needed to breathe in

new life and the new expression emerging from the Baroque, into Venetian art. That type

of progress was precisely what was occurring in the Bolognese school of the Carracci.

While there are no documentary sources to confirm Annibale Carracci in Venice

or his contact with Venetian artists, it is evident from his marginal annotations in his copy

of Vasari’s Lives that he traveled somewhat in Northern Italy and was influenced by the

paintings he saw, and certainly by the prints after Venetian artists made by his brother

Agostino.47

Annibale and Agostino initially opened their own academy in the studio of

their cousin Ludovico, who was already a member of the painter’s guild in Bologna.48

As a gathering place for like-minded young artists, the Carracci eventually turned from a

46

David Rosand, “The Crisis of the Venetian Renaissance Tradition,” L’Arte, 11-12, (1970), p. 5.

47

For an assessment and a new study on the subject of Annibale’s reception of Venetian painting

see Catherine Copp, The Carracci and Venice: Annibale Carracci’s Stylistic Response to

Venetian Art and the Intermediate Roles of Ludovico and Agostino Carracci, PhD Dissertation,

(Ontario: Queens University, 2014); also Charles Dempsey, “The Carracci Postille to Vasari's

Lives,” The Art Bulletin, 68, (1986), pp. 72-76 for Annibale’s notes.

48

For a good discussion and overall primer on the Carracci Academy, see Gail Feigenbaum,

“Practice in the Carracci Academy,” Studies in the History of Art, 38, Symposium Papers XXII:

The Artist's Workshop, (1993), pp. 58-76 and Henry Keazor, Il vero modo“Die Malereireform

der Carracci, (Berlin: Gebrüder Mann Verlag, 2007).

59

loose assembly to an actual teaching institution with a proscribed curriculum. The

Carracci were dissatisfied with Mannerist practice; the deep rooted trend of the late

1500’s.49

Their artistic reform was entrenched in a commitment to north Italian

naturalism and colore. In order to escape the sterility of maniera, they turned to the study

of nature and of the paintings of non-Mannerist artists such as Correggio, Titian and

Veronese. As their style progressed, elements of central Italian disegno were added and

fused with northern Italian colorito and chiaroscuro. This synthesis of stylistic elements

from a variety of sources was not just a goal, but the means to create a new style that was

as much an expression of personal conviction as it was of contemporary artistic and

religious concerns. The Carracci sought a new, persuasive verisimilitude of form that

could stand in opposition to the dominant Mannerist trend. It was Agostino Carracci,

Annibale’s elder brother, who organized and prepared anatomical models for study

within the academy. This direct observation of the human figure, whether it be through

the use of sculpture or the actual dissection and examination of cadavers, was considered

critical in the learning process of students.50

Securely based in the study of nature, this

adhesion to sketching and drawing created a conjunction with central Italian disegno (fig.

30).

The Carracci must be mentioned, albeit briefly, because it was the pedagogical

methods and activity of Agostino within his Bolognese academy and the resulting

49

Carlo Cesare Malvasia, Malvasia's Life of the Carracci: Commentary and Translation, trans.

Anne Summerscale, (University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania University Press, 2000) and Charles

Dempsey, “The Carracci Postille to Vasari's Lives,” The Art Bulletin, 68, (1986), pp. 72-76.

50

See M.J. Lewine, The Carracci, A Family Academy, (New York, 1967).

60

proliferation of study drawings that would eventually influence Odoardo Fialetti (1573—

c. 1638) during his working career in Venice. Additionally, Agostino had, by 1590,

already collaborated with the Venetian print-publisher Giacomo Franco, who would in

turn enter into a partnership with Fialetti in the early 1600s. Aware of the activities of the

Carracci academy—initially through his own teacher, Giovanni Battista Cremonini (d.

1610)—Fialetti brought the practices of the school with him when he arrived in Venice

by 1590. Born in Bologna in 1573 he received some early training there, and had a brief

sojourn in Rome before he moved to Venice. He was associated with Jacopo Tintoretto

in the last years before his death in 1594, and Fialetti’s name appears in the Venetian

painter’s guild from 1604 until 1612.51

Ridolfi records that the elder Tintoretto

admonished Fialetti always “…should draw, and still draw: estimating with reason that

the design was the one that gave the grace and perfection of the painting.”52

Although no clear documentary evidence places Fialetti directly in the school of

the Carracci, his Il vero modo et ordine per dissegnar tutte le parti et membra del corpo

humano (1608) produced together with Palma il Giovane is similar in nature to the

anatomical sketches used by Agostino in his teaching, and implies a familiarity with their

working method. This publication, and others that would follow, can be considered the

51

See Giorgio Marini, “Notes,” Print Quarterly, 13, (June, 1996), pp. 187-189; Carlo Donzelli, I

pittori del Seicento Veneto (Florence: R. Sandron, 1967), pp. 177-179; Bartsch, Le peintre-

graveur, XVII, (Vienna, 1803-1821), p. 261; Malvasia, Felsina pittrice, I, (Bologna, 1678), p.

309.

52

Carlo Ridolfi, Le Meraviglie dell’Arte, vol. 2, (Milan: Arnaldo Forni, 2002), p. 248, the Italian

reads, “…e dimandatolo di nuove il Fialetti se gli desse altro ricordo, il vecchio soggiunse, che

dovesse disegnare, e ancora disegnare: stimando con ragione che il disegno fosse quello che desse

la grazia e la perfezione alla pittura.” My translation.

61

first of this type of Carracci-inspired guide, and were not necessarily intended for the

training of artists, although later they would be used this way.53

These books should be

seen in the context of luxury items for the growing market of collectors and gentlemen

amateurs that were swarming to Venice during this period and who will be discussed

further in the next chapter.54

Fialetti’s partner, Palma il Giovane (1548-1628), had become the most prolific

painter in Venice after the death of Tintoretto in 1594. He had begun his artistic training

first with his father and then later moved to the court of Urbino. He was in Rome in

1567, returning to Venice three years later and falling under the influence of Titian.55

In

his later years Palma’s style somewhat mimicked that of Tintoretto, but he was not

successful in synthesizing the dynamic nature of the master’s brushwork or capturing the

intensity of his figural relationships. Palma’s career straddled a moment of artistic and

53

David Rosand, “The Crisis of the Venetian Renaissance Tradition,” L’Arte, 11-12, (1970), p.

15; S. Buffa, Italian Artists of the Sixteenth Century (1983), 38 [XVII/v] of The Illustrated

Bartsch, ed. Walter Strauss, (New York: Abaris Books, 1978–); Sue Welsh Reed, Italian Etchers

of the Renaissance and Baroque, (Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1989), pp. 248, 251, and

especially Catherine Whistler, “Life Drawing in Venice from Titian to Tiepolo,” Master

Drawings, 42, (2004), p. 382.

54

The argument that these drawing manuals were for amateurs is made by Michael Bury, The

Print in Italy, (London: British Museum, 2001), pp. 198-200, contrary to the argument made by

Rosand, “The Crisis of the Venetian Renaissance Tradition,” L’Arte, 11-12, (1970), pp. 12-22

who argued they were primarily for artists. Philip Sohm, “La critica d’arte di Carlo Ridolfi e

Marco Boschini,” La Pittura nel Veneto. Il Seicento, ed. Mauro Lucco, vol. 2, (Milan: Electra,

2000), pp. 735-736 also suggests a skepticism of these publications in Venice, and Catherine

Whistler, “Life Drawing in Venice from Titian to Tiepolo,” Master Drawings, 42, (2004), p. 382

agrees with his sentiment.

55

For a full discussion of Palma’s early years and his drawing practice, see David Rosand,

“Palma il Giovane as a Draughtsman: The Early Career and Related Observations,” Master

Drawings, 8, (1970), pp. 148-161.

62

stylistic fluctuation in Venice which his work noticeably captures, caught between the

influence of Titian and Tintoretto.

Palma contributed two etchings for Fialetti’s Il vero modo et ordine per dissegnar

tutte le parti et membra del corpo humano. His Madonna and Child (fig. 31) and Christ

and the Woman Taken in Adultery (fig. 32) are included at the end of the book, after forty

or so pages of anatomical drawings detailing specific parts of the body. There are pages

for ears, chins, torsos, and how to go about drawing the human head from a foreshortened

perspective; Fialetti effectively provides a complete guide on drawing the human figure

(figs. 33-35). More a manual or pamphlet than an actual book, it lacks any significant

text and relies solely on visual instruction.

The importance of Fialetti’s drawing book is the clear interest in providing some

sort of instruction for aspiring artists whether they were amateur or professional; there

was no discrimination. As mentioned previously, the restrictions of the Venetian

painter’s guild were tightly controlled, and it was not until 1754 that an actual Accademia

di Pittura e Scultura was founded in Venice.56

Figure painters, or figureri, had

complained of their associates who traded in the more mechanical aspects, such as house

painters and other decorators, and in 1682 a Collegio dei Pittori had been formed.57

They

were a far cry from a true academy however, and instruction of students remained

entrenched in the workshops of those masters they assisted. It is possible that Aliense or

56


Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 10.

57

Alice Binion, “The Collegio dei Pittori in Venice,” L’Arte, 11-12 (1970), pp. 92-101.

63

Malombra, who were both collectors of drawings, occasionally hosted a life drawing

school, but there is no documentary evidence of this ever taking place. Ridolfi records

the desire of Domenico Tintoretto to open an academy of his own, addressed later in this

chapter, but it did not come to pass. By the time of Marco Boschini’s publications in the

mid-1600s—which catered to the same type of buyer of Fialetti’s drawing manuals—

group life drawing classes were taking place in the homes of Pietro Liberi and Pietro

della Vecchia, as well as later under Antonio Zanchi.58

Fialetti’s work, though not of the highest production quality and by no means

comprehensive, still indicated a desire and interest to look beyond the lagoon for other

sources of inspiration. The curriculum of the Carracci academy was a successful one

with students ranging from Bologna to Naples; it is not surprising that with such

proximity to Venice its influence would be felt. The commercial prospects for such an

endeavor must have also been strong. Librai, or booksellers, and engravers were often

also co-publishers, challenging the idea that the engraver was commissioned for work

and paid by the publisher, who then claimed ownership of the plates. 59

Engravers as

independent artists, like Fialetti, would have valued their status in relation to that of the

merchant bookseller.60

Defining the term “print publisher” is not a straightforward task,

58

Marco Boschini, La Carta del Navegar Pitoresco [1660], ed. Anna Pallucchini, (Venice and

Rome: Istituto per la Collaborazione Culturale, 1966), mentions their drawing academies, or more

appropriately “study groups”, pp. 534-537.

59

David Landau, The Renaissance Print (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), pp. 287-289.

60

For direct example this type of co-publishing, see Michael Bury’s discussion of Domenico

Zenoi and Donato Bertelli in The Print in Italy (London: British Museum, 2001), pp. 172-173.

64

especially as those who may have only marketed a handful of original prints each year

having much of their time also devoted to the publishing and selling of books.61

A shop

also attempting to maintain a certain level of production may have sub-contracted work

to specialists. The seventeenth century source Tempesti tells us a printer could expect to

turn out eighty to a hundred prints a day and those who could not compete would look

elsewhere for assistance.62

Fialetti’s first work, Il vero modo, was printed by the shop of Justus Sadeler

(1583—1620). A family of northern printers who had settled in Venice by 1595/96,

Justus, his father Johannes (1550—1600) and his uncle Raphael Sadeler (c. 1560—1628)

were active in applying to the Venetian Senate for printing privileges. They opened their

print shop in 1597, something no other Northerner in Venice had yet done, and took

maximum advantage of their position as both engravers and publishers.63

After the death of his father, Justus managed the shop in partnership with his

uncle. Within his print stock, over fifty percent derived from copies of engravings

already printed by colleagues.64

The predominance of plates were Northern, with

61

For broader discussion see Gert Jan van der Sman, “Print Publishing in Venice in the Second

Half of the Sixteenth Century,” Print Quarterly, XVII, (2000), pp. 236-247.

62

For Tempesti, see David Woodward, Maps and Print in the Italian Renaissance: Makers,

Distributors, and Consumers (London: British: Library, 1996), p. 47.

63

Gert Jan van der Sman, “Print Publishing in Venice in the Second Half of the Sixteenth

Century,” Print Quarterly, XVII, (2000), p. 240.

64

Besides the plates by Justus himself, numbering around 350, see Philippe Sénéchal, “Justus

Sadeler: Print Publisher and Art Dealer in Early Seicento Venice,” Print Quarterly, VII, (1990),

pp. 28-29, for new research, and for the plates of his father Johannes, Hollstein counts 622, and

his uncle Raphael, Hollstein counts 343, there also would have been plates by other Flemish

engravers. It is reasonable to guess the Sadeler’s plate stock numbered in the thousands.

65

approximately one hundred after Italian masters, comprising less than one third his

output.65

Odoardo Fialetti and his Il vero modo et ordine per dissegnar tutte le parti et

membra del corpo human was the only Italian etcher whose individual work Sadeler

published, suggesting the interest in academic apprenticeship growing in Venice and its

obvious marketability.66

Considered the Sadeler’s main commercial rival, the Venetian printmaker and

publisher Giacomo Franco (1550—1620) opened his calcografia in the Frezzaria,

all’Insegna del Sole, between the Piazza San Marco and the Ponte di Rialto in 1595.67

The son of Giovanni Battista Franco, known as ‘il Semolei’ (c. 1510—1561), upon his

father’s death Franco inherited all of the equipment, designs and numerous printing plates

from his workshop.68

Only eleven years old at the time, it is unlikely that Giacomo had

much training from his father, probably receiving it instead from another member of

Battista’s workshop. Due to his later collaboration with Agostino Carracci on the

publication of Tasso’s La Gerusalemme Liberata and his own bold, free style of

engraving, it has occasionally been suggested that Agostino mentored the young

65

Philippe Sénéchal, “Justus Sadeler: Print Publisher and Art Dealer in Early Seicento Venice,”

Print Quarterly, VII, (1990), p. 28.

66

See David Rosand, “The Crisis of the Venetian Renaissance Tradition,” L’Arte, 11-12, (1970),

pp. 5-53 for a detailed comparison between the treatises of Fialetti and Franco.

67

Carlo Pasero, “Giacomo Franco, editore, incisore e calcografo nei secoli XVI e XVII,” La

Bibliofilia, 37, (1935), pp. 332-356.

68

For further information on the life and work of Giovanni Battista Franco, see William. R.

Rearick, “Battista Franco and the Grimani Chapel,” Saggi e Memorie di Storia dell’Arte, 2,

(1958-1959), pp. 105-140.

66

Franco.69

This hypothesis seems implausible, however, as we know that Agostino was

not working in Venice until 1588-89 and his association with Franco is limited to only

one book. Yet the completion of the Gerusalemme Liberata project in April 1590 does

speak to a widening circle of artistic contacts and ventures for Franco of which Agostino

Carracci was one, and like Fialetti, was influenced in some manner by the Bolognese

artists.

While Franco did not open his own publishing house until 1595, he was active as

an engraver from about 1579 onwards, producing illustrations for Zenaro, Da Sabbio,

Ziletti, and Francesco de’Franceschi among others in Venice.70

It is possible to draw a

distinction between the bodies of work produced by Franco as an engraver before this

date and as an established publisher after it.71

It is among the latter group that Franco’s

best known works are found; Habiti d’huomini et donne Venetiane (1610), De

Excellentia et Nobilitate Delineationis Libri Duo (1611), La Città di Venetia con

l’origine e Governo di quella (1614), and Habiti delle donne Venetiane (1614) (fig. 36).

By 1590 Franco must have made the association of Palma il Giovane as well, with

whom he would later publish De Excellentia et Nobilitate Delineationis Libri Duo

69

This is suggested as early as 1785 by Joseph Strutt, from his Biographical Dictionary of all the

Engravers (London, 1785), reprinted Geneva 1972, p. 307.

70

For further discussion see Carlo Pasero, “Giacomo Franco, editore, incisore e calcografo nei

secoli XVI e XVII,” La Bibliofilia, 37, (1935),, pp. 337-342; Gert Jan van der Sman, “Print

Publishing in Venice in the Second Half of the Sixteenth Century,” Print Quarterly, XVII,

(2000), pp. 236-247.

71

See Chiara Stefani, “Giacomo Franco,” Print Quarterly, X, (1993), p. 269.

67

(1611).72

His book, similar to Fialetti’s earlier manual and most likely spring-boarding

off the success of that publication is also intended as a primer in the art of drawing.

Franco includes more textual instruction however, and his plates are dense with examples

to be copied (fig. 37-38). The anatomical models of the first section were designed by

Palma but engraved by Franco, and with the inclusion of two title pages (one for each

part of the book) Palma takes a more active role in this publication than he did with

Fialetti’s work (fig. 39). The second section uses designs from Franco’s father Battista

for ornaments and decoration in the all’antica style.

Although Franco had the legacy of his father’s artistry and the history of his city

to draw upon, he limited himself to entrepreneurial economy and did not venture much

further. The defined outlines and basic structure of Franco’s Habiti d’huomini et donne

venetiane suggests the prints were made to be mass produced and marketed in either

bound versions or thinner leaflets and sheets, and a similar observation can be made with

the De Excellentia et Nobilitate Delineationis Libri Duo. Like Fialetti, Franco’s primary

purpose was to provide a group of models focused on the idea of disegno. In this respect,

both manuals are fusing the teaching method of the Carracci with the theory of Vasari,

effectively recognizing the foundation of disegno in the art of painting, and formalizing it

within a Venetian context.

Fialetti and Franco demonstrate a shift in the Venetian climate of the early

Seicento toward a reinterpretation of artistic attitude, but their books could not serve as

72

For a complete discussion of this association and its ramifications, see David Rosand, “The

Crisis of the Venetian Renaissance Tradition,” L’Arte, 11-12, (1970), pp. 5-53.

68

replacement for actual hands-on workshop experience. Instead, they point to an interest

in associating the craft of the artist into the realm of an academic.

Venice, with its conservative and stable government remained the most backward

in respect to the establishment of academies of art and the freeing of painters from social

and intellectual restrictions.73

The Accademia Veneziana della Fama, founded in 1557

was a grouping of philosophers, poets, scientists, rhetoricians, and even musicians;

representing all of the liberal arts except painting. Its second incarnation in 1593, the

Accademia Veneziana seconda, followed the same activities but did list among its

members several artists, including Jacopo Tintoretto and his son Domenico.74

The

younger Tintoretto was more inclined toward intellectual pursuits than his father; he

wrote poetry and associated with Venetian literary circles.75

The role of drawing had in

fact played as a continuous part of an assistant’s education in the Tintoretto workshop,

making use of plaster casts as well as models of Michelangelo’s sculpture of Dusk and

Dawn from the Medici Chapel (fig. 40). These had been expressly ordered by Tintoretto

from the Florentine Daniele da Volterra.76

These were only available to those admitted to

the studio however, and it was Domenico who after the death of his father briefly

73


26.

74

Emmanuele Antonio Cicogna, Corpus delle iscrizioni di Venezia e delle isole della laguna

veneta, (Venezia: Biblioteca orafa di Sant'Antonio abate, 2001), pp. 52-53; David Rosand, “The

Crisis of the Venetian Renaissance Tradition,” L’Arte, 11-12, (1970), p. 35.

75

Carlo Ridolfi, Le Meraviglie dell’Arte, (Milan: Arnaldo Forni, 2002), p. 509.

76

Carlo Ridolfi, Le Meraviglie dell’Arte, (Milan: Arnaldo Forni, 2002), p. 175. Ridolfi also

makes note of the famous phrase “Il disegno di Michelangelo, e il colorito di Tiziano” written on

Tintoretto’s wall (possibly only a myth).

69

considered opening his door to those interested parties wanting to draw without formally

entering the workshop as apprentices.77

Had Domenico in fact succeeded in creating a gathering place for aspiring

artists—those who wished to join the workshop and those who were only of amateur

inclination—Venice may have found itself with a facility akin to the Carracci academy.

Not purposeful in goal so much as in practicality, for Annibale and Agostino Carracci

had a clear purpose in reforming the dominant trend of Mannerism which they considered

stale, but instead as a focused location in which artists could explore and learn outside the

boundaries of the Venetian guild. If Domenico, with his more academic interests in

conjunction with the resources of the Tintoretto shop had made a different choice, it is

entirely possible that Venetian Seicento painters would have bypassed the onus of

stagnation ascribed to them through literal creative cross-pollination. A new mode of

thinking, or more correctly an availability of information, was already present with the

publishing of Fialetti and Franco’s drawing books but what was additionally required—

which the Carracci had provided in Bologna—was a physical space to gather. Instead—

as discussed earlier—learning the painter’s craft remained solidly within the bottega of

each individual master, whose teaching methodology continued to revolve around

learning to mimic their own particular style rather than providing a broad base of

knowledge and skill and encouraging individual invention.

77

For a summary, see R. Tozzi, “Disegni di Domenico Tintortetto,” Bollettino d’arte, XXXI,

(1937), p. 19 and David Rosand, “The Crisis of the Venetian Renaissance Tradition,” L’Arte, 11-

12, (1970), p. 32.

70

Due to outbreaks of plague in 1576 and again in 1630, the painter’s guild had

opened its rolls to non-matriculated painters out of literal need, but at the same time lost

some control of the standards it did have.78

Instead of fostering an institution that could

rectify and correct the lack of fundamental artistic basics, such as disegno, the guild

remained resistant. Established artists like Aliense, Palma, Malombra, and the Caliari,

Bassano and Tintoretto heirs, had begun to explore and alter attitudes on their own, but

their attempts to copy the stylistic success of Tintoretto’s terribilità or the grande

maniera veneziana fell short. Portraits by Domenico Tintoretto and Palma are examples

of the best attempts, relying on a methodical approach and attention to detail (fig. 41).

But in larger historical works these early Seicento canvases become overwhelmed and

only exhibit half-hearted naturalism, and even the brushstroke which had distinguished

Venetian art becomes circumspect, as in the Aliense Supper at Emmaus mentioned earlier

(fig. 16).

The inheritors of the Venetian High Renaissance, though steeped in a rich

tradition and aware of the new stylistic movements of the Carracci and their Roman

connections, were unable to further reconcile the potential of those associations in order

78


2010), pp. 214-219 for demographics of painters in Venice. The Giustizia Vecchia finally

approved the separation of the Arte dei Depentori (those of the liberal arts) from those of the

mechanical arts in 1680. Elena Bassi, La Regia Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia, (Florence:

Le Monnier, 1941), p. 128. Other painter types included, gilders (doratori), decorative and house

painters, i.e. walls (dipintori), musical instrument painters (cimbanari), stationers (cartolari),

miniaturists (miniatori), leather painters (coridori), and wax fruit and still life (naranzeri,

fruttarioli) painters.

71

to break new visual ground.79

The attempts of individuals like Fialetti and Franco to

capitalize on the situation by bringing attention to disegno as a foundation rather than an

ancillary aspect to painting practice is noteworthy but did not significantly alter the

situation. Compounding this problem was the conservative nature of the Venetian social

atmosphere, and in particular the painter’s guild which was resistive to change.

Additionally, their manuals became popular with a new class of collector and

connoisseur—the gentleman of quality—who now felt educated in their purchasing

decisions. The combination of these issues placed Venetian artists in an untenable

position, unable to fully embrace the emerging naturalism of the Baroque, and incapable

of relinquishing the commercially viable perception of their glorious past.

Odoardo Fialetti and Giacomo Franco, whatever their personal motivations may

have been behind their production of drawing manuals—be it commercial gain or a

rooted interest in proliferating the working concept of disegno—inhabit a moment of

fluctuation and uncertainty. Their publications would inspire similar works in later

decades, eventually acting as a bridge between successful innovation occurring elsewhere

in Italy and the quagmire of facility Venetian painters found themselves trapped in. It

was only a question as to whether or not a Venetian artist was capable of reconciling the

traditions of their past with the lessons of their present, and thereby embracing the

challenge.

79


41 for this idea.

72

3. The Neurosis Manifest: Domenico Tintoretto80

The wealth that the generation of Cinquecento masters left to their heirs was not

only measured by the notaries who arrived to list their worldly possessions; it also resided

in the popularity of the paintings they left behind as public works and private

commissions. The continued desirability for the style of these artists along with the

methodology of their teaching—through imitation—meant that while they may have

established financial security for their offspring they had effectively clipped the wings of

any emerging creativity and stylistic innovation. Therein lies the difficulty their

inheritors faced; did they dutifully soldier down a path already established and secured,

or did they throw caution to the wind in an attempt to make their own artistic mark?

The answer lies somewhere in the middle I believe, where balancing between

what is prudent and what might be a reckless endeavor could cause anxiety. This visual

“neurosis;” this inability to let go of the past and the uncertainty of how to proceed into

the future inherited by the early Seicento generation is personified by Domenico

Tintoretto, who surely must have felt the overwhelming presence and legacy of his

larger-than-life father Jacopo at every turn. Though Domenico met with success and

never wanted for commissions, living to a respectable age in comfort, his is a prime

80

This chapter section has been published by the author, Taryn Marie Zarrillo, “The Neurosis of

Visual Legacy: Seicento Venetian Painters Confront Their Past” in The Enduring Legacy of

Venetian Renaissance Art, ed., Andaleeb Banta, (Surrey: Routledge, 2016). It is a modern notion

to use the term “neurosis,” but the implication here is not to provide psychoanalysis of Domencio

Tintoretto, it is simply to capture the flavor of the meaning—otherwise it would be a protracted

discussion on the imbalance of his humours and potential melancholia, which is much too obtuse

for this author.

73

example of the sort of visual neurosis that plagued the painters of his generation as he

trod the path set out by his father. Did these artists maintain the status quo of production

and style inherited from their masters, or did they attempt their own innovations and risk

losing commissions?

Ridolfi, biographer of this generation and their forbearers, provides us with

observations regarding the position in which Seicento artists found themselves. The

opening lines of his biography for Domenico read: “If Domenico had understood the

state in which Heaven had created him, by arranging that he be born to such a fine father

through whose example he could have aspired to great things by following the direct

path, he would, without doubt, have left a more worthy record of his achievements.”81

Ridolfi seems to be in favor of maintaining the status quo set by Jacopo, and is not

entirely sympathetic to Domenico. He continues, “disdaining to continue on the true

path, he strayed from his father’s manner in order that the world could certify that it is

more improbable for Tintorettos to be reborn than it is that there be more than one

Apelles.”82

If we are to take Ridolfi’s words at face value then it would seem he felt that

81

My emphasis underlined, see Carlo Ridolfi, The Life of Tintoretto, trans. Catherine Enggass

and Robert Enggass (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1984), p. 87. The

Italian reads, “Se Domenico avesse conosciuto lo stato nel quale il Cielo avevalo costituito,

facendolo nascere di padre così eccellente, col cui esempio, seguendo l’orme incominciate,

poteva aspirare a cose grandi, avrebbe senza dubbio lasciate più egregie memorie della sua

mano.”

82

Carlo Ridolfi, The Life of Tintoretto, trans. Catherine Enggass and Robert Enggass (University

Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1984), p. 87, “ma sdegnando egli di continuare

l’intrapreso sentiero, traviò da quella maniera: il che ha potuto certificare il mondo, che più

difficilmente nascono I Tintoretti, che gli Apelli.”

74

Domenico had made a mistake in attempting to somewhat chart his own course—that he

had disregarded the collaborative lessons of his father’s bottega in favor of being more

stylistically self-sufficient. This is not the case however; Domenico mimicked Jacopo

and purposefully marketed the family brand. Instead, I believe Ridolfi is referring to

Domenico’s lack of invention, and not the manner in which he painted. Jacopo’s true

legacy and what differentiated him from others was his ability to innovate; that was his

true legacy and path and what Domenico lacked. Important research published in

conjunction with the 2007 Tintoretto exhibition at the Prado Museum, Madrid is the latest

illustration of the difficulty faced by academics in untangling works by Jacopo from

works done in conjunction with other assistants including Domenico, and works by

Domenico himself.83

If Domenico had in fact strayed from Jacopo’s stylistic manner as

we could assume Ridolfi suggests, then the authorship of their respective visual records

would not be so difficult to assign.

In Jacopo’s testament, made the year he died, 1594, he charges Domenico to

“…finish my works that remain imperfect, by your own hand, using the manner and

diligence that you always used on many of my works.”84

Clearly, Jacopo had faith in his

son’s abilities to complete unfinished commissions to his standard and following his

83

Miguel Falomir, ed., Jacopo Tintoretto: Actas del Congreso Internacional Jacopo Tintoretto

(Madrid: Museo Nacional del Prado, 2009), especially. pp. 120-150.

84

The Italian reads, “finisca l’opere mie che restassero imperfette, di sua mano, usando quella

maniera e diligentia che ha sempre usata sopra molte mie opera.” See Giovanni Prosdocimo

Zabeo, “Elogio a Giacomo Robusti.” Discorsi letti nella I.R. Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia:

in occasione della distribuzione de’Premi degli Anni 1812-1815, ed. Antonio Diedo, (Venice,

Picotti: 1815), pp. 23-93, for the full text of Jacopo’s will, see pp. 57-58.

75

method, as though the paint had flowed from his own brush. Ridolfi uses the words

“egregie memorie della sua mano,” to describe what could have been Domenico’s own

legacy if he had followed his father’s path more directly. His words translate less as

“worthy record of his achievements” and more literally as “distinguished memory of his

hand.”85

In stating that Domenico could have aspired to great things (poteva aspirare a

cose grandi) and could have had a “distinguished memory” Ridolfi is not commenting on

the manner or quality of Domenico’s brushwork, which he admires, but on the

compositional structure of his canvases and the type of paintings he produced.

Ridolfi goes so far as to say “though Domenico drew much praise and profit from

painting portraits, it is to be (he) regretted that they were given precedence over his other

work.”86

By painting such a glaring number of portraits, a large portion which he takes

the time to list—including his own—Ridolfi implies that Domenico had descended from

the high plane of historical and religious subject matter into easy lucrative commissions

(thus less distinguished). Though he is described as creative and with an interest in

literature, there is no suggestion from Ridolfi that Domenico ever pushed the boundaries

of his compositions beyond what Jacopo had already done, and even then he was

85

The Italian reads, “…poteva aspirare a cose grandi, avrebbe senza dubbio lasciate più egregie

memorie della sua mano.” See Carlo Ridolfi, Le Meraviglie dell’Arte, (Milan: Arnaldo Forni,

2002), p. 501. Enggass translates as “worthy record of his achievements,” see Carlo Ridolfi, The

Life of Tintoretto, trans. Catherine Enggass and Robert Enggass (University Park: Pennsylvania

State University Press, 1984), p. 87, my translation reads “distinguished memory of his hand.”

86

Carlo Ridolfi, The Life of Tintoretto, trans. Catherine Enggass and Robert Enggass (University

Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1984), p. 92, the original Italian reads: “Ma sebbene

Domenico traesse molta lode ed utilità dal fare ritratti, dolevasi nondimeno che quelli fossero

anteposti alle altre sue opere, pretendendo il primo onore nelle figure.”

76

conservative. Ridolfi’s issue wasn’t with the style of paintings Domenico produced

(which was Jacopo’s), but with the actual type they were and the lack of imagination they

exhibited. Domenico’s conflict was that he literally did not, or could not, meaningfully

differentiate himself and his work from his father and workshop legacy, and so blundered

on in Jacopo’s shadow, neither exceeding nor departing outright from the Tintoretto

house-style in any purposeful manner. Ridolfi’s “distinguished memory of his hand” is a

two-fold verbal allusion; it suggests both what would be the memory of Domenico’s own

production “of his hand,” and the legacy of what was “distinguished” by Jacopo to push

the boundaries of innovation.

It is clear from Domenico’s production that he consistently reused his father’s

compositions, often combining elements from multiple sources into one canvas. He

frequently rehashed established figural poses—a well-known and good example would be

the Baptism of Christ. If we compare Jacopo’s initial version from San Silvestro in

Venice (fig. 42) with two versions by Domenico; one from San Pietro Martire on Murano

(fig. 43) and another from the Cleveland Museum collection (fig. 44), the viewer can see

how the poses of John the Baptist and Christ are the lynchpin of the composition. In all

three pictures, Christ leans in toward John, his head bent beneath the stretched out arm of

the Baptist, while their knees bend in mirrored unison and they create a circular sense of

motion and space between their bodies. But where Jacopo is focused and limited in his

arrangement, Domenico elaborates—his additions suggesting a concentrated effort to

label his work as “Tintoretto.” Jacopo’s figures dominate the canvas; the landscape of a

craggy rock and small waterfall that John stands on only serve to root him, reinforce and

77

mimic the act of baptism taking place between the two men. In Domenico’s version the

details of landscape compete with his protagonists. There is more sky, more clouds,

more rocks and water, populated by additional figures observing the scene and making a

private moment crowded; as though he includes as much as he can to inform the casual

observer that this painting is a Tintoretto production. Where the waterfall beside John

was unobtrusive in Jacopo’s Silvestro version, it has become overly ornate in the

Cleveland canvas with water spilling forth from a cornucopia held by a life-size sculpture

of a pagan river god. Instead of creating a sense of juxtaposition between old and new

religions however, it appears to have been included simply because it was attractive.

Domenico’s paintings are more visually involved and specific, but they do not

resonate with the same level of dramatic power Jacopo is able to invoke by focusing

more deeply on the figures and capturing subtle nuances to create an intimate mood. The

Murano and Cleveland paintings try to revolve around the figures, but the additions are

distracting and the quiet gravity of the moment is lost in the details. I would suggest

instead that after Jacopo’s death, there was a purposeful effort under Domenico’s

leadership within the bottega to produce pictures that remained true to the “Tintoretto”

house type. Carrying on the manner and level of production as though Jacopo had never

left, Domenico attempted to remain true to the mandate laid out in his father’s will

whether he was successful or not.

It was the very nature of Venetian workshop practice, perfected in the family

studios of the Cinquecento that facilitated the commercial marketing that occurred in the

shops of their Seicento inheritors. It was already common practice to accept that

78

paintings coming out of a master’s workshop were by the master, meaning that they had

his stamp of approval as being up to par with his own standard of quality even if he had

not touched them himself—as we saw with the earlier case of Titian’s San Lorenzo.

Perhaps Ridolfi’s statement regarding the “the improbability of Tintorettos to be reborn”

alludes to this direction taken by the studio under Domenico’s leadership—the pictures

could be fabricated by assistants and students to an established standard, but with the

assertion that while what amounted to a pastiche would remain desirable to commission,

the original inventions and ideas of the master were impossible to generate without him.

Domenico must have realized that genius (like his father’s) was not necessary to

create Venetian state propaganda or appealing compositions so long as the model that

genius had already established was followed. He also understood that his clients wanted

pictures that were the “Tintoretto” type, even if they lacked that sense of sprezzatura that

had initially made them so unique. As Hans Tietze succinctly put it, ‘Sometimes, from a

scientific point of view, a creation vastly indebted to assistants may bear a more

convincing evidence of the master's genius than one which no hand other than his has

touched.”87

Which brings us back to Ridolfi’s disparaging opening remarks—that

Domenico could have followed his father’s path but chose otherwise. Perhaps that’s the

irony here, and where the neurosis sets in: in his attempt to give his clients what he knew

they wanted, instead of picking up the reins of innovation which was Jacopo’s true

legacy, Domenico simply continued with a manner that had become routine and safe. To

87

Hans Tietze, “Master and Workshop in the Venetian Renaissance,” Parnassus, 11, (1939), p.

45.

79

an extent, his artistic education had undermined any originality or personal improvement

while simultaneously bringing him success.

In the works he assisted with or painted the majority of, Domenico’s hand can

often be seen alongside his father’s. The Flagellation of Christ, dating from the 1580s or

early 1590s in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna is a good example (fig. 45). The

focal point of the central figure and its anatomical distinction can be ascribed to Jacopo,

while the rest of the composition was completed by Domenico.88

After Jacopo’s death,

however, locating Domenico’s individual hand becomes more difficult to establish—as

though there is a conscious decision to try and mask and tone down the style of his youth.

His manner is still evident in the Birth of the Virgin, from the early 1590s in the

Accademia, Venice, where Jacopo was most likely involved in the compositional design,

but the execution reveals Domenico’s “pretty” mode and the additional figures display

his stylistic characteristics.89

Returning to focus on the comparison of the San Silvestro

and St Pietro Martire Baptisms, the difference in handling is evident after making a side-

by-side comparison, but Ridolfi himself lists the Pietro Martire Baptism as being by

Jacopo, although it is now known to have been done entirely by Domenico. Conversely,

Ridolfi correctly assigns the Adoration of the Magi in San Trovaso (fig. 46) to Domenico,

88

Robert Echols and Frederick Ilchman, “Toward a new Tintoretto Catalogue, with a Checklist of

revised Attributions and a new Chronology” Jacopo Tintoretto: Actas del Congreso Internacional

Jacopo Tintoretto, ed. Miguel Falomir, (Madrid: Museo Nacional del Prado, 2009), pp. 91-150,

and specifically 135, n 286 for attribution of the Flagellation.

89



Jacopo Tintoretto, ed. Miguel Falomir, (Madrid: Museo Nacional del Prado, 2009), p. 136, n.

306.

80

but then misattributes his Expulsion of Joachim from the Temple in that same church to

Jacopo.90

Even Ridolfi, it would appear, could be fallible.

The late pictures produced in the Tintoretto studio continued to capture the

dynamic nature of the figures in relation to one another due to Jacopo’s involvement in

the design and layout, but the quality of execution itself degrades in dynamism lacking

the seemingly effortless handling that had been the standard. Once Domenico takes

control of the workshop after his father’s death, the production quality increases

somewhat but the compositional unity then breaks down and appears more jumbled.

After 1594, the bottega remained busy and continued to take in assistants and students.

From his testament we know that Jacopo left the entire contents of his studio, including a

large number of drawings, to Domenico. Sketches had always played an integral role in

the delegation of work when Jacopo was alive. As a competent draftsman, Domenico

followed his father’s practice, and judging from the large number of drawings left to his

own subsequent heirs, he was clearly prolific.

That the Tintorettos made ample use of disegno is an established and accepted

fact, so it is not far-fetched to suggest that sketching and drawing continued to take place

in the workshop as a standard teaching method after Jacopo’s death.91

When we further

90



Jacopo Tintoretto, ed. Miguel Falomir, (Madrid: Museo Nacional del Prado, 2009), pp. 135-136,

n. 301-303.

91

See Paola Rossi, “Per il Catalogo di Jacopo e Domenico Tintoretto: novita e precisazioni,” Arte

Veneta, 55, (1999), pp. 31-47; and William R. Rearick, “The Uses and Abuses of Drawings by

Jacopo Tintoretto,” Master Drawings, 42, (2004), pp. 349-360; Catherine Whistler, “Life

81

consider Domenico’s attempts to try and resuscitate the idea of a Venetian academy

along with his associate Odoardo Fialetti—a publisher of drawing manuals that take their

cues from the Carracci school as discussed—it is not unreasonable to come to this

conclusion.92

If assistants and students were always involved in the stages of production

going on in the workshop, then surviving examples of them practicing to learn the

technique are not hard to accept. It is clear from the large number of existing drawings

we know to have been produced while Jacopo was alive that many of the sheets are by

assistants with multiple drawings copied and worked over to learn the logistics of the

master’s form and style (fig. 47). The ability to differentiate authorship is visible in the

unsure and weak nature of the student line on the paper when compared with a confident

and bold example by the master, such as Jacopo’s rendering of Michelangelo’s figure

Day (fig. 48).93

The developed gradation of shading and form is practiced and effortless,

with each mark of the chalk purposeful and cohesive.

Drawing in Venice from Titian to Tiepolo,” Master Drawings, 42, (2004), pp. 370-396 for a more

general discussion.

92

See David Rosand, “The Crisis of the Venetian Renaissance Tradition,” L’Arte 11-12, (1970),

pp. 5-53 for an excellent discussion of drawing practice by Venetian artists.

93

Ridolfi tells us that Jacopo Tintoretto ordered models of Michelangelo’s Medici tomb

sculptures: Day, Night, Dawn and Dusk from the Florentine artist Daniele Volterrano and that he

would sketch them from various angles, see Ridolfi, Le Meraviglie dell’Arte, (Milan: Arnaldo

Forni, 2002), p. 175. This drawing is in the collection of the Print and Drawing Department of

the Metropolitan Museum of Art, accession number 54.125. See also Claus Virch, "A Study by

Tintoretto after Michelangelo" The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, 15, (1956): 111-116

and more recently Linda Wolk-Simon and Carmen C. Bambach, An Italian Journey. Drawings

from the Tobey Collection: Correggio to Tiepolo, exhibition catalogue (New York: The

Metropolitan Museum of Art, May 12 - August 15, 2010), 76, no. 21.

82

Taking these factors into consideration, a group of oil sketches currently in the

collection of the Print Department of the British Museum might represent the same sort

of training and teaching Jacopo supported, except this time taking place under the

leadership of Domenico.94

Rather than representing preparatory drawings by Domenico,

to whom they have been attributed, the majority of this group, numbering ninety in total,

may in fact be the practice sketches of Domenico’s assistants and students learning the

parts and process of the established Tintoretto house style. These sketches, or pennellati,

entered the collection in 1907 bound together and were initially given attribution to

Jacopo.95

Hans and Erica Tiezte then reattributed them to Domenico in the 1940s.96

Scholarship has debated their purpose and use by Domenico. On one hand they have

been described as an example of how he broke away from his father’s style and working

method, pushing into a sort of grotesque realism, and were indicative of the social and

political turbulence and decline taking hold within the Republic.97

Alternatively, they

have been considered a new type of preparatory model by Domenico, his way of working

94

The group is in the collection of the British Museum, Department of Prints and Drawings, acc#

1907,0717.1-90. The sketchbook has been disassembled and the drawings mounted individually. 95

Sidney Colvin, “Tintoretto at the British Museum-I,” The Burlington Magazine, 16, (1910):

189-191 + 194-195 + 198-200; Sidney Colvin, “Tintoretto at the British Museum-II,” The

Burlington Magazine, 16, (1910): 254-257 + 260-261.

96

Hans Tietze and Erica Tietze-Conrat, The Drawings of the Venetian Painters in the 15th and

16th Centuries, (New York: J.J. Augustin, 1944), pp. 262-266.

97

This interpretation is put forward by Stefania Mason in her article “Domenico Tintoretto e

l’eredità della bottega,” Jacopo Tintoretto: Actas del Congreso Internacional Jacopo Tintoretto,

ed. Miguel Falomir, (Madrid: Museo Nacional del Prado, 2009), pp. 84-90.

83

through a composition, despite the fact that there is no known painting for many of the

groupings.98

Subjects include sketches of The Miracle of the Dying Slave (figs. 49-53), with

the detail of the slave and surrounding figures after Jacopo’s version in the Accademia,

Venice (fig. 54); a Reclining Nude, or Danae (figs. 55-60); and St Mark Rescuing a

Saracen from Shipwreck (figs. 61-62). Over thirty sketch versions of the Temptation of

St Anthony in the British Museum group displays a consistency among the figures in

terms of pose, figural grouping, action, and iconography (figs. 63-69). Each rendering is

not significantly altered or developed as if working through any compositional

problems—they are simply repeated. Notice the female figure on the left of six of these

sketches; her pose remains exactly the same, but in reverse and switching to the right-

hand side in one drawing. There is the occasional shifting of a figure, but nothing to

significantly adjust the strength of the overall composition or suggest organizational

problems were being reconsidered. Further, if each sketch is examined in detail,

differences in style and manner begin to appear—especially when the anatomical

representation is closely scrutinized. Rather than one single hand repeatedly reworking

the same subject matter over and over again as is currently accepted, the sketches appear

to be by different artists all working off of the same master composition.

The only mention of a painting of the Temptation of St Anthony by Domenico

comes from Ridolfi, who gives its location as the church of San Giacomo di Rialto,

98

See Linda Freeman Bauer, “’Quanto si disegna, si dipinge ancora:’ Some Observations on the

Development of the Oil Sketch,” Storia dell’Arte, 32, (1978), pp. 45-57 for this interpretation.

84

mostly likely commissioned by the Goldsmith’s Guild.99

Paola Rossi published two

paintings of the Temptation of St Anthony in a 1999 article and linked them to the British

Museum sketches; prior to that, they were last mentioned in a 1982 sale catalogue (figs.

70-71).100

Since that sale their whereabouts are unknown and there is no documentation

to link either one with San Giacomo di Rialto. Furthermore, while the sketches and the

paintings are clearly compositionally linked, there is also no indication or documentation

of the chronology of the sketches in relation to the paintings.

We know that the British Museum group was purchased by Don Gasparo de Haro

y Guzman, Marqués del Carpio, through his Venetian agent Antonio Saurer, and

mentioned in the inventory of his collection in 1687.101

In 1678, Saurer had visited the

Tintoretto studio, inherited by Sebastiano Casser through his wife Ottavia, Domenico’s

sister. She had died in 1646, and Saurer reported to his employer that Casser was

99

The location of this painting is unknown. An examination of the interior of this small church

also leaves one wondering where it would have been placed, as there is literally not enough wall

space. Lionello Venturi, Le Origini della pittori veneziana 1300-1500, (Venice, 1907), p. 224.

100

Paola Rossi, Paola Rossi, “Per il Catalogo di Jacopo e Domenico Tintoretto: novita e

precisazioni,” Arte Veneta, 55, (1999), pp. 35-36, note 8, mentions the painting and cites the

auction catalogue, Franco Semenzato & C.Sas, Arredamento antico e oggetti vari, (Venice,

1982), p. 40, n. 638, but does not give an exact date of sale or location other than Venice.

Semenzato held sales in Venice in April, September and December 1982.

101

Stefania Mason, “Domenico Tintoretto,” Jacopo Tintoretto: Actas del Congreso Internacional

Jacopo Tintoretto, ed. Miguel Falomir, (Madrid: Museo Nacional del Prado, 2009), p. 88;

Fernando Marias, “Don Gaspar de Haro, marqués del Carpio, coleccionista de dibujos” in Arte y

diplomacia de la Monarquía Hispánica en el siglo XVII, ed. José Luis Colomer, (Madrid:

Fernando Villaverde Ediciones, 2003), pp. 208-219. Haro (1629-1687) was a major art collector

who owned several paintings by Tintoretto, a Magdalene by Titian, Christ Crowned with Thorns

by Messina (now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), and Velazquez’s Rokeby

Venus in the National Gallery, London—to name just a few. See Beatrice Cacciotti, “La

Collezione del VII marchese del Carpio tra Roma e Madrid,” Bolletino d’Arte, 86-87, (1994), pp.

133-196.

85

extremely advanced in age when they met. The workshop itself was in a state of ruin

with no real works of value left in it, but Casser assured Saurer that he had held back

several items. These “vestiges of Tintoretto” as they were described, were sold to del

Carpio as the real thing; but I believe they were in fact the remnants of student work

made under Domenico’s tutelage, compiled together to give the impression of greater

value. If they truly had been the work of Jacopo or Domenico Tintoretto, they would not

have been left to molder and gather dust in an unused studio—Casser was too savvy for

that.102

A final comparison can be made through a study by Jacopo of Michelangelo’s

Day (fig. 48) and a reclining nude by Domenico (fig. 72), both from the Metropolitan

Museum of Art, and an oil sketch of Mary Magdalene, made by a student of Domenico’s,

from the British Museum group (fig. 73).103

Despite the difference in media, it is

important to note how the drawings of Domenico and his student are derived from a

precedent set by Jacopo. Domenico’s nude works to imitate his father’s understanding

and representation of anatomy. He has added minimal shading to define the physical

102

For Saurer’s full account of his meeting with Casser, his impressions and the visit to the

studio, see Fernando Checa, “El Marqués del Carpio (1629-1687) y la pintura veneciana del

Renacimiento. Negociaciones de Antonio Saurer,” Anales de historia del arte, 4, (2004), pp. 193-

212. Additionally, Domenico’s heirs found themselves in difficult financial straits; after his death,

his sister Ottavia appealed to the Doge directly for a reprieve on their taxes, stating that “the

industry of the Tintoretto children will be lost otherwise.” Her letter reads, “hora seguita la morte

delli predetti figlioli di Jacopo è con la vita restata estinta lindustria.” See Rodolfo Gallo, “La

famiglia Tintoretto,” Ateneo Veneto, 128, (1941), pp. 83-84, for the text. This supports the notion

that after her death, Casser would have continued to feel pressed and be inclined to sell whatever

was left in the studio.

103

Metropolitan Museum of Art, Department of Drawings, accession #54.125 and #1975.1.539

respectively, and British Museum, Department of Prints and Drawings, accession #1907,0717.7.

86

density of the figure, and the outline of the arms and thighs show a similar interest in the

curvature and expressive folds of flesh made with bold strokes. Effort is concerted to

render the human form in a way similar to Jacopo; the flesh is given substance. The

Magdalene on the other hand, appears an almost comical attempt to mimic the

established style, and suggests the work of a novice. The foreshortened perspective is

amateur, and the lines of the body have no definition or clear anatomy and seem

unsteady. Lacking the qualities of a preparatory sketch but at the same time including too

many superfluous details, it is as if the artist is copying another work in an effort to

practice compositional arrangement. The overall result implies working within the

boundaries of another’s design; the type of repetition labored through to grasp a

particular style and eventually reproduce it. Just as this was Domenico’s lesson from

Jacopo, so he taught his students to do the same.

The neurosis of visual legacy faced by Seicento Venetian painters is the true

inheritance from their Cinquecento predecessors. This is why their production often

suffers—they were stymied by the burden of that heritage. Where they should have had

the most to gain from their temporal proximity, their work is too often jumbled and over-

embellished in an attempt to include as many visual allusions to their master as possible

to legitimize their production. They were too close to gain the critical distance and

perspective required to reshape the past as their own, and so what might have been their

greatest asset became a liability. Because of their unwillingness to step away from an

successful established model, and despite their realization of that fact, they could not

advance beyond it. Everything about their workshop education and the training of

87

subsequent students would have cemented the value of repetition. Confronting the past

does not always necessitate change; Domenico Tintoretto and his students are just one of

many examples of studios that continued working within an accepted model without

questioning it. Insofar as Domenico was not his father, he did recognize and accept the

incentive of emulating him. Training the next generation to carry on—albeit in a

derivative form—Domenico was always looking over his shoulder to the past, even as he

attempted to define his own future legacy.

88

CHAPTER 3: Foreign Agents in the Venetian Picture Market

Mix with hir’d slaves, bravoes, and common stabbers,

Nose slitters, alley-lurking villains! Join

With such a crew, and the ruffian’s ways

To cut the throats of wretches as they sleep.1

Thinking back to the opening decades of the seventeenth century when several of

the greatest sales of Venetian picture collections had taken place—the della Nave,

Renieri, and Priuli—Marco Boschini lamented the availability of Old Masters on the

market by the 1660s, nostalgically writing “piture adio; Venezia saria senza.”2 Both he

and del Sera arrived late to the game of acquisition that had reached its zenith in the

buying excursions of the generation before. This chapter tells the story of English

collectors and their agents chasing pictures in early Seicento Venice, all undoubtedly

influenced by the writings of Coryat and Lewkenor, and all eager to build a collection

worthy of bragging rights. While there were other occasional interested parties; the

Spanish, French, other Italians and representatives of the Low Countries, it was the

English at the beginning of the seventeenth century who cornered the market and

competed against one another with an appetite so voracious it put everyone else to



2 See Marco Boschini, La Carta del Navegar Pitoresco, ed. Anna Pallucchini (Venezia-Roma:

Instituto per la Collaborazione Culturale, 1966), pp. 22-23, for quote p. 23, line 6, “adieu pictures;

Venice is without (any).” My translation.

89

shame.3 One has to wonder at the unflagging popularity of Venetian pictures with the

English buyer; was it an underlying affinity for the myth of Venice, or particular taste for

the sensuous style of painting? In either case, the massive number of paintings brought

home to England either in bulk by the nobility or individually by the traveling gentleman

often still grace the walls of British country homes today.4 For those that passed into the

hands of another enthusiast, their provenance typically traces the rise and dissemination

of great collections across Europe as fortunes shift, armies conquer and time goes by.5

These first decades of collecting in Seicento Venice were critical; they expanded the

popularity of Venetian masters and set the tone for workshop production in the latter half

of the century, when original paintings were no longer available and the market for

copies muddled connoisseurship.

In the sixteenth century, outside of the public and private commissions within

Venice, the desire for paintings by the Cinquecento masters came from the rulers of other

European territories.6 As we have seen in Chapter Two, Philip II of Spain commissioned

3 This was a rather particular cultural movement, see Walter Houghton, “The English Virtuoso in

the Seventeenth Century,” Journal of the History of Ideas, 3, (1942), pp. 51-73.

4 Edward Chaney, ed., The Evolution of English Collecting: Receptions of Italian Art in the Tudor

and Stuart Periods, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003)

5 Giuseppe De Rita, “A Cultural Diaspora with No Regrets (When the City was a Centre of

Production,” Venezia Altrova, (2002), pp. 9-27; Francis Haskell, “Some Collectors of Venetian

Art at the End of the Eighteenth Century,” Studies in Renaissance and Baroque Art presented to

Anthony Blunt on his 60th Birthday, (London: Phaidon, 1967), pp. 173-178; Fabio Isman, “My

Lord, Here is the Sales Catalog (Chronicles of a Total Depredation),” Venezia Altrove, 2, (2003),

pp. 29-45.

6 For an overall discussion see Patricia Fortini Brown, “Where the Money Flows: Art Patronage

in Sixteenth-Century Venice,” in Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese: Rivals in Renaissance Venice, ed.

90

new works in addition to being an insatiable collector; fueled by the inherited paintings

from his father, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V who had been one of Titian’s

greatest patrons. These buyers were able to go directly to the source if they wanted an

original.7 The new consumers in the opening decades of the Seicento, notably from the

court of King James I and his son, King Charles I of England, perceived the act of

collecting art as a way to garner attention, gain favor, and increase their status at home.

Making use of diplomats, ambassadors and personal agents, by the end of the 1630s they

had effectively swept the market, exporting as many Venetian old masters as they could.8

It would be left to Boschini, del Sera and their associates to scrounge through the

remains.

Rudolph II (1552—1612), Philip II’s nephew and the eventual Holy Roman

Emperor, owned large scale mythologies by Veronese; Mars and Venus United by Love

(fig. 74), the Allegory of Wisdom and Strength (fig. 75), the Allegory of Virtue and Vice

(fig. 76), and Hermes, Herse and Aglauros (fig. 77), which ultimately entered the

collection of Christina of Sweden after the fall of Prague in 1648.9 While the acquisition

documentation for these works is unclear it may have been Rudolph’s father Maximilian

Frederick Ilchman, (Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 2009), pp. 41-59, specifically pp. 56-59 for

noble patronage outside Venice.

7 Although as we have seen with Philip II, that may not have exactly been the case.

8 Fabio Isman, “My Lord, Here is the Sales Catalog (Chronicles of a Total Depredation),”

Venezia Altrove, 2, (2003), pp. 29-45, and Edward Chaney and Timothy Wilks, The Jacobean

Grand Tour: Early Stuart Travelers in Europe, (London: Tauris, 2014).

9 In order, these paintings currently reside in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, acc#

10.189; the Frick Collection, New York acc#’s 1912.1.128 and 1912.1.129, and the Fitzwilliam

Museum, Cambridge, acc# 143.

91

II who made the purchases. Rudolph independently acquired a suite of four ceiling

canvases, the Allegories of Love (figs. 78-81), from his agent in Venice, Jacopo Strada

(1507—1588) (fig. 82).10

Rudolph had also purchased, with some forcing, the collection of Cardinal

Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle, a minister of Charles V and “friend and patron to Titian”

from Granvelle’s nephew and heir.11

The Gonzaga of Mantua and the Este of Ferrara

were also major patrons, as was Duke Carlo Emanuele of Savoy, the grandson of the

French King Francis I.12

These individuals had the disposable income required for

commissions and large scale purchases, and they would build the picture collections that

would inspire a succession of new collectors to follow suit in the opening years of the

seventeenth century.

10

Now in the National Gallery, London, acc# NG 1323-1326. For Strada in Venice, Heinrich

Zimmermann, "Zur richtigen datirung eines Portraits von Tizian in der Wiener kaiserlichen

Gemälde-Galerie," Mittheilungen des Institutes für österrreichische Geschichtsforschung, 6,

(1901), pp. 830-857; for Strada as art dealer, Dirk Jacob Jansen, "Jacopo Strada et le commerce

d'art," Revue de l'art, 77, (1987), pp. 11-21 and John F. Hayward, "Jacopo Strada, XVIth century

antique dealer, Art & Auction 1971-72, (1973), pp. 68-74. Since details of these canvases which

date from 1575 appear in Van Dyck’s Italian sketchbook started in 1621, one might assume they

were acquired after Rudolph’s death—however, as David Jaffé rightly points out, their

appearance and sketchy quality suggests they may have been copied from a intermediary record,

possibly a cartoon. See David Jaffé, “New Thoughts on Van Dyck's Italian Sketchbook,”

The Burlington Magazine, 143, (2001), pp. 614-624, specifically p. 616 for this suggestion. The

Van Dyck sketches appear on fol. 35 and 35v of the sketchbook, in the collection of the

Department of Prints and Drawings of the British Museum, acc# 1957,1214.207.1. The entire

sketchbook has been reproduced in Michael Jaffé, The Devonshire Collection of Northern

European Drawings, vol.1, (Torino: Umberto Allemandi & C., 2002).

11

Hugh Trevor-Roper, Princes and Artists, Patronage and Ideology at Four Habsburg Courts

1517–1633, (London: Thames & Hudson, 1976), p.112 for Rudolph’s less than genial techniques.

12

William R. Rearick, The Art of Paolo Veronese, 1528-1588, (Washington DC: National Gallery

of Art, 1988), p. 123 and Terisio Pignatti and Filippo Pedrocco, Veronese, (Milan: Electra, 1995),

I, cats. 332-333.

92

The Venetian collections the English buyers courted had been amassed by noble

families and wealthy merchants, who typically added to their hoard with each successive

generation. As economic conditions fluctuated individually, as well as for the Republic

during the seventeenth century, portable paintings were seen as an easy commodity to sell

in a pinch.13

In Venice, paintings numbered in the tens of thousands and almost every

household owned them; having art objects befitting one’s social status was almost a duty.

The city had never been invaded or sacked, and so the dispersal of its art came only from

sale. But behind the idea of the Venetian art collection was the love of homeland, and it

was felt in the great public collections of the Doge’s Palace, Library, and Rialto offices;

in the religious institutions; the collections of the Scuole, confraternities large and small;

and finally among the personal collections of private individuals.

13

Jack Hinton, “By Sale, By Gift: Aspects of the Resale and Bequest of Goods in Late Sixteenth

Century Venice,” Journal of Design History, 15, (2002), pp. 245-262.

93

1. Competing For Courtly Favor

Sir Henry Wotton (1568—1639) arrived in Venice on 23 September 1604 to take

up his post as English Ambassador to the Republic (fig. 83). Considered the bottom rung

of the English diplomatic ladder for postings, the Venetians themselves saw the position

as particularly important; they now had a permanent representative of a Protestant state—

and the most powerful one at that. For Wotton, Venice remained a uniquely stimulating

city despite the fact her greatest days were now over.14

He would serve as Ambassador

to Venice on two occasions: from 1604 to 1610, and again from 1615 until 1623. In the

five years between his appointments the post was held by Dudley Carleton (1573—

1632), who had no great love for the city, nor initially for her art, stating that “the

Imployment I am now entering into, is of little more use then my other in Ireland; for

there is small difference between sticking in Boggs or being environed with Waters.”15

Upon his arrival in Venice, Wotton began a stream of correspondence to his

superior, Robert Cecil, Lord Salisbury and Secretary of State (1563—1612), describing

the complex and colorful world of Venetian ceremony and politics. His audiences in

front of the Doge brought him face to face with the great works of the Venetian masters,

14

Gerald Curzon, Wotton and His Worlds: Spying, Science and Venetian Intrigues, (New York:

Xlibris, 2004), pp. 91-92. While Curzon is not a specialist, until his publication there was no

dedicated biography of Wotton, only Logan Pearsall Smith, ed., The Life and Letters of Sir Henry

Wotton, 2 vols, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1907). See also Chapter 1, note 2 of this

document.

15

Carleton was writing to Sir Ralph Winwood, Ambassador to the Hague, London 25 July 1610,

in Edmund Sawyer, ed., Memorials of Affairs of State in the reigns of Queen Elizabeth and King

James I, collected chiefly from the original papers of Sir Ralph Winwood, (London: Thomas

Osborne, 1727), 3, p, 200-201, full text available online from Google Books.

94

including when he had been the company of Thomas Coryat, and in his daily activities he

must have encountered numerous artists at work in their studios. During both Wotton’s

postings to Venice, Domenico Tintoretto, Aliense, Malombra, Fialetti, Palma,

Padovanino, Tinelli, and the Bassano—to name but a few—would have been active in

Venice. He soon realized the benefits of satisfying the demand for pictures at home in

London and the favor it would bring to his position. In 1607 he sent Cecil what he

described as “Prometheus devoured by the eagle, done by Giacobo Palma in concurrence

with Titiano, which for the emulation between two painters (both of no small name) I

dare say to be worthy of a corner in one of your Lordship’s galleries” (fig. 84).16

The

addition to his growing collection at Hatfield House pleased Salisbury, who then sent

word to Prince Henry (the elder son of James I) about the Palma; the response was that

the prince “desires you come before one of clock with your pictures.”17

Unlike his father James I, Henry was an avid art collector and those courtiers

around him in Whitehall saw the advantages of keeping up, if not feigning interest (fig.

85). In fact, the Palma purchased by Wotton and sent to Salisbury would be given to

him. By 1610 Wotton had left Venice for a new appointment as Ambassador to the

Hague and his replacement, Dudley Carleton, found himself pressed to continue the

16

Logan Pearsall Smith, ed., The Life and Letters of Sir Henry Wotton, 2 vols, (Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 1907), 1, pp. 419-420 for quotation.

17

Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts 9: Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Most

Honourable Marquess of Salisbury, vol. 21, (London: Printed for H.M.S.O. by Eyre and

Spottiswoode, 1883-1976), p. 39. For Salisbury’s collections see Erna Auerbach and C.K.

Adams, Paintings and Sculpture at Hatfield House, (London: Constable, 1971). This picture

would eventually wind up in the Prince’s collection.

95

tradition of dealing in pictures that he had established. In a letter sent to him by Sir

Walter Cope, Carleton was told, “if you meet with any ancient Master pieces at a

reasonable hand, you cannot send a thing more gracious, either to the Prince, or to my

Lord Treasurer (Salisbury).”18

But Carleton never had the chance to act on Cope’s

advice; Salisbury died in May 1612, and was soon followed the same year by the sudden

death of Prince Henry, on 6 November.

Although Prince Henry had made the trend of collecting art fashionable, the

majority of works in his collection were received as gifts rather than chosen specifically

by him; therefore the choices tended to be the result of someone else’s taste.19

No will or

detailed inventory of his household was made prior to his death, and when Richard

Connock made an audit of his possessions, he omitted reference to “pictures, plate, and

sylvan vessel, rich hangings, and furniture of his house with other things of great worth,

not here valued.” 20

Instead of quelling the interest of English courtiers in collecting art,

Henry’s death only seemed to intensify it. Eventually, once he was able to shake his

taciturn shell, it would be the prince’s younger brother Charles who would become the

18

Quotation cited by Timothy Wilks, The Court Culture of Henry, Prince of Wales, 1603-1613,

D.Phil thesis, (Oxford University, 1987), p. 181.

19

Catherine MacLeod and Timothy Wilks, The Lost Prince: The Life and Death of Henry Stuart,

(London: National Portrait Gallery, London, 2012) and Roy Strong, Henry Prince of Wales and

England’s Lost Renaissance, (London: Random House, 1986).

20

Timothy Wilks, “Art Collecting at the English Court from the Death Of Henry, Prince of Wales

to the Death of Anne of Denmark,” Journal of the History of Collections, 9, (2001), pp. 31-48;

quotation cited by Timothy Wilks, The Court Culture of Henry, Prince of Wales, 1603-1613,

D.Phil thesis, (Oxford University, 1987), p. 162. As a decision to deter James from liquidating his

son’s collection, the scheme appeared to work.

96

center of the craze for picture collecting at the English court.21

In the meantime,

aristocratic Jacobean gentlemen assumed that displaying an impressive collection of

paintings and objects was essential to improving their social status.

21

While the development of Charles as an art collector and the building of his collection is a

fascinating bit of history, it is tangential to the discussion of English buyers specifically in

Venice, except of course where both topics may cross paths. Sufficient to say, King Charles I

was a collector as monumental in scale as Philip II of Spain, halted only by his unfortunate

decapitation in 1649. See Pauline Gregg, King Charles I, (Berkeley: University of California

Press, 1984); Arthur MacGregor, ed., The Late Kings Goods: Collections, Possessions and

Patronage of Charles I, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989); Jonathan Brown, Kings and

Connoisseurs, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995); Thomas Corns, ed., The Royal

Image: Representations of Charles I, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999) and

Jonathan Brown, The Sale of the Century, (New Have: Yale University Press, 2002) for the

history of his life, art collection, and its eventual dispersal.

97

2. Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, Aletheia Talbot, and William Petty

Thomas Howard, 2nd

Earl of Arundel (1585-1645) had been one of Henry’s

closest advisors, and was granted permission to travel to Italy only weeks before the

prince’s death (fig. 86). Due to the ill-advised politics and personal convictions of his

grandfather, Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk (1536–1572) and his father Philip

Howard, 1st Earl of Arundel (1557–1595), his early circumstances were meager.

22

Reinvested with his titles in 1604 by King James, he was granted Arundel Castle, West

Sussex, and his Norfolk estates along with the incomes they provided, and would come to

build a reputation as one of the pre-eminent collectors of the Stuart period.

Arundel made a good match with Aletheia Talbot (d. 1654), youngest daughter of

the rich and powerful Gilbert Talbot, 7th

Earl of Shrewsbury (1553–1616), whom he

married in 1606 (fig. 87). Her dowry and the fortune they inherited upon Shrewsbury’s

death allowed them to build a considerable art collection and spend long periods on the

Continent. Arundel owed much of his political advancement and knowledge of art to the

Earl of Shrewsbury’s encouragement; the most valuable help he received being the

22

Arundel’s grandfather, the 4th

Duke of Norfolk intrigued against Queen Elizabeth to marry

Mary, Queen of Scots and was imprisoned in the Tower of London in 1569. He was attainted

(convicted without trial) and executed in 1572. Arundel’s father Philip Howard, named for his

godfather Philip II of Spain, never renounced his Catholicism and was arrested attempting to

leave England without permission. Committed to the Tower in 1585, he was never formally

charged with treason and in fact given several opportunities to recant, which he dismissed. He

died of dysentery ten years later in 1595, never having seen his son (Arundel) who had be born

after his imprisonment. He was canonized by Pope Paul VI in 1970 as one of the Forty Martyrs of

England and Wales. John Hungerford Pollen, “Ven. Philip Howard,” The Catholic Encyclopedia,

vol. 7, (New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910). As an additional note, Henry, Earl of

Surrey, the grandfather of Philip and great grandfather of Arundel was executed in 1547 by Henry

VIII. The family did not have the best track record.

98

services of Thomas Coke, secretary and artistic adviser to Shrewsbury, who became the

first agent he employed to assist in forming his collection.

On his 1612 permission to travel, Arundel, his wife, and their entourage went to

Spa, near Liège in Belgium, to take the waters for health purposes. Stopping at Brussels

and Antwerp, he made the acquaintance of Rubens and visited the collections of the Duke

of Aarschot and the Postmaster-General at Antwerp, where he greatly admired Sebastiano

del Piombo’s Ferry Carondelet and his Secretary, a picture he believed was a self-

portrait by Raphael and which he eventually acquired in 1618 (fig. 88).23

In the autumn of 1612 Arundel and his party left the Low Countries for Padua,

intending to undertake a prolonged tour of Italy, but his plans were frustrated by the news

of the death of Prince Henry and caused their return to England. By the following April

1613, Arundel managed to return to Italy after accompanying Elizabeth, daughter of

James I, to Heidelberg for her marriage to Frederick V, Elector Palatine (1596–1632).24

Arundel and his wife, with an entourage of thirty-five that included Coke, the architect

Inigo Jones, and their agent William Petty, went first to Milan and were in Venice and

Vicenza by the early autumn of 1613. Spending two weeks in Venice, Arundel was

accompanied by Dudley Carleton, who was now halfway through his appointment there

as ambassador. Although their itinerary through the city is not known, it is assumed

23

Mary F. S. Hervey’s The Life, Correspondence and Collections of Thomas Howard Earl of

Arundel, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1921); David Haworth, Lord Arundel and His

Circle, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985).

24

Lionel Cust and Mary Cox, “Notes on the Collections Formed by Thomas Howard, Earl of

Arundel and Surrey,” The Burlington Magazine, 19, (1911), p. 279.

99

Arundel would have viewed collections such as the Grimani and been reading Francesco

Sansovino’s Tutte le cose notabili che sono in Venetia (1556) as his guide.25

Perhaps it

was through the intensive crash course in Venetian art while spending time with the

Arundel’s, but in a meeting with the Doge and his cabinet in September 1613 Carleton

admitted, “I, who have been here three years, may say that until now I had not seen

Venice,” suggesting his prior lethargy was at an end.26

Carleton’s association with

Arundel was to provide him with the opportunity to act on the advice given to him by

Cope three years earlier.

The Arundels then spent six weeks in the Monasterio delle Grazie in Siena

studying Italian before an excursion to Rome, which undoubtedly represented the climax

of the Italian tour. In June 1614 the earl and countess turned for home, travelling by way

of Siena once more and arriving in England in 1615. In the following years Arundel

would be kept at court or travelling, first on behalf King James and then for Charles, but

his wife Aletheia would return to Italy in 1620 and remain in the Veneto until 1623.

25

David Howarth, Lord Arundel and His Circle, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985), pp.

34-37. Since Boschini had not yet written his Carta or Ricche Minere, Arundel would have to

make do with Sansovino. The Grimani collection, primarily of antique sculpture but containing

some Flemish paintings as well (in particular Bosch), was a public one, having been donated to

the State in 1523 by Domenico Grimani. Marilyn Perry, “Cardinal Domenico Grimani’s Legacy

of Ancient Art to Venice,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 41, (1978), pp. 215-

244 for donation and history of the collection.

26

Robert Hill, “The Ambassador as Art Agent: Sir Dudley Carleton and Jacobean Collecting,”

The Evolution of English Collecting: Receptions of Italian Art in the Tudor and Stuart Periods,

ed., Edward Chaney, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), p. 244. Rawdon Brown, ed.,

Calendar of State Papers and Manuscripts, Venice, (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1869-

1883), see 1613-1615, Carleton to the Venetian College, 13 September 1613, p. 42.

100

William Petty (1585—1639) had entered the earl’s household in 1613 as a tutor,

just prior to the second Italy trip. He had been part of Shrewsbury’s circle, and it is most

likely that he came to the attention of Arundel through his father-in-law.27

In 1623

Arundel’s advisor Coke died and Petty succeeded him as the earl’s chief art agent abroad.

The extent of the Arundel collection during this time is difficult to gauge. Purchases

were made during the initial excursions to Italy but they were not in bulk. Rather, it

would seem that the earl used his time to develop his eye and refine the tastes that had

influenced him to travel.28

It is important to note that of all the English collectors,

Arundel had a vested interest in acquiring knowledge of the subject as much as he had a

desire to obtain paintings and objects. His pursuit was founded on a passion for art and

not simply on the favors and attention it could buy him at court; this would be a major

distinction between him and his rivals George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham and James,

3rd

Marquise of Hamilton.

27

David Howarth, Lord Arundel and His Circle, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985),

pp.127-148.

28

This trip was important not only for what Arundel saw, but who he made the acquaintance of

while there. Francesco Vercellini served as the Earl’s Venetian secretary, while Gregorio

Barbarigo, the Venetian ambassador-elect to England served as an escort. Barbarigo, an

intellectual and follower of Paolo Sarpi, had purchased the contents of Titian’s house from his

son Pomponio, see Carlo Ridolfi, Le Meraviglie dell’Arte, (Milan: Arnaldo Forni, 2002), vol. 1,

pp. 261-262. Jennifer Fletcher, “The Arundel’s in the Veneto,” Apollo, 144, (1996), pp. 63-69.

101

3. Sir Dudley Carleton, Daniel Nijs (Nys) and Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset

While Dudley Carleton (fig. 89) was escorting the Arundels through Venice, he

was also gathering a consignment of fifteen paintings and ancient sculpture to be sent to

Robert Carr, Viscount Rochester and 1st Earl of Somerset (1587—1645), the current

favorite of King James (fig. 90).29

Carleton, his awareness of artistic matters growing,

had already made contact with Domenico Tintoretto on behalf of John Finet. Finet had

commissioned paintings from Tintoretto during his visit to Venice in 1610, and requested

that Carleton keep track of the progress.30

On behalf of William Cecil, Lord Roos, the

grandnephew of Salisbury, he was also negotiating with Tintoretto for another four

paintings: a Judgment, a Mary Magdalene, a portrait of Doge Donato, and Roos’ own

portrait. These had been ordered during several visits to the city in 1612-1614.31

Carleton must have liked what he saw in the Tintoretto workshop, since according to

Ridolfi he had his own portrait painted there as well.32

29

For Somerset as a collector see A.R. Braunmuller, “Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset, as Collector

and Patron,” The Mental World of the Jacobean Court, ed. L. Peck, (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1991), pp. 230-250.

30

Carleton wrote to John Chamberlain, “I have sent Mr. Finet a letter from Signor Tintoret,”

Public Record Office, State Papers, 99/9/116, Carleton to Chamberlain, Venice, 3 April 1612,

reprinted in Maurice Lee, ed., Dudley Carleton to John Chamberlain 1603-1624 Jacobean

Letters, (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1972), p. 126.

31

This list comes from J.P. Feil, Sir Tobie Matthew and his Collection of Letters, PhD

dissertation, (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1962), p. 86 and is transcribed from British

Library, Add. MS 18, 639/18, 19, 95 and 96.

32

Carlo Ridolfi, Le Meraviglie dell’Arte, (Milan: Arnaldo Forni, 2002), v. 2, p. 506. On the same

page as Carleton, spelled “Duodlien Carleton” is listed the portrait of the French Ambassador, no

name given, and “il conte d’Arundel e la Contessa sua moglie con figliuoli.”

102

For the Somerset shipment Carleton was out of his depth however, and turned to

the Flemish art dealer Daniel Nijs (1572—1647), who had been living in Venice since the

1590s (fig. 91). There is no record of Nijs and Carleton meeting in Venice, despite the

amount of time it took to put the group of paintings together, and Carleton had little say

in the selection Nijs made. Of the fifteen paintings: six were by Jacopo Tintoretto

(Susanna, a Benediction of Jacob, Queen of Sheba, a Samaritan Woman, a Ceres, Baccus

and Venus, and a Labyrinth), five by Veronese (three Life of Hercules and two Poetic

Histories), a Venus by Titian, a Shepherds by Schiavone, and two were paintings by

Bassano (Beheading of St John and a Creation) (fig. 92).33

Carleton had purchased the

works on speculation, assuming he would be reimbursed by Somerset once they were

received and he seemed to think he was getting a good price; two thousand Venetian

ducats for the lot, or half his annual salary.34

Since he bought them sight-unseen

however, it is impossible to say whether it was a brilliant deal or Nijs had sold him studio

works of original paintings; the majority of the pictures have disappeared.35

Even if

Carleton had examined them, the inexperienced Englishman would not have known the

33

For the list, see Timothy Wilks, “The Picture Collection of Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset (c.

1587-1645), reconsidered,” Journal of the History of Collections, 1, (1989), p. 171 and Jeffrey

Müller, Rubens: The Artist as Collector, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), pp. 82-82,

published in the Italian.

34

Francois Portier, “Prices Paid for Italian Pictures in the Stuart Age,” Journal of the History of

Collections, 8, (1996), p. 56. The prevailing exchange rate was about £1 to 4 ducats.

35

The Bassano Beheading of John the Baptist in the Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen is a

likely candidate, acc# KMSsp132. It is sloppy, with an unfinished look to it and appears to have a

stronger influence from Veronese than that of Bassano. See A.R. Braunmuller, “Robert Carr, Earl

of Somerset, as Collector and Patron,” The Mental World of the Jacobean Court, ed. L. Peck,

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 235.

103

difference. It was a standard practice for painters to increase their incomes by making

copies of Old Masters, whether they were prestige copies or purposefully done to pass as

originals and deceive the buyer, and that may have been the case here.36

Given the

reputation of Daniel Nijs, this was a distinct possibility. A successful but unpredictable

businessman, Nijs was known for his temper, flattery, and unscrupulous business deals.

Not just an art dealer, he trafficked in anything that stood to make a profit, including

arms, intelligence, and art. When he arrived in Venice he went to work for his cousins

Jean, Jacques and Pierre Gabry, who were originally from Tournai and had established an

international trading firm, becoming part of a small, yet conspicuous, expatriate

community of Flemish merchants. He soon took over the Venetian branch when Pierre

departed Venice for Germany, and would go on to broker the greatest art deal of the

seventeenth century; the 1627 sale of the Gonzaga collection to Charles I.37

Ambassador Carleton dutifully shipped the consignment of paintings from Nijs to

London in April 1615, but by the time they arrived Somerset was already falling from

favor with King James. Once again, Carleton had lost out on an opportunity to ingratiate

36

See Philip Sohm and Richard Spear, Painting for Profit, (New Haven: Yale University Press,

2010), pp. 218-219.

37

Christina Anderson, “The Art of Friendship: Daniel Nijs, Isaac Wake and the Sale of the

Gonzaga Collection,” Renaissance Studies, 27, (2013), pp. 724-737. By the time of the Gonzaga

sale, Isaac Wake had been appointed as English Ambassador to Venice. He had been Dudley

Carleton’s secretary during his appointment, and had been present for the Somerset deal. Nijs bit

off more than he could chew with the Gonzaga sale however. His tactics were untrustworthy;

when he attempted to charge the King for items not received, Charles refused payment and Nijs

went bankrupt. He alienated Carleton, who by that time had become Secretary of State, and spent

his final days in London trying to recuperate his losses. The story is decidedly complex with all

manner of duplicity, double-dealing and backstabbing, for an excellent retelling see Jerry Brotton,

“The Italian Job,” The Sale of the Late King’s Goods, (London: Macmillan, 2006), pp. 107-144.

104

himself with a political superior in the final moment. When he arrived at court in

October 1615, having been recalled from Venice and reposted to the Hague, he

discovered that Somerset was already incarcerated in the Tower over his involvement in

the poisoning of his secretary Sir Thomas Overbury.38

This left Carleton in an awkward position; the fifteen paintings had arrived and

had been hung in Somerset’s apartments in Whitehall, but the earl, who had a bad habit

of not settling his debts, had not paid him and was currently residing in the Tower.39

Carleton owed Nijs the money for the paintings; not being reimbursed was out of the

question. Fortunately Sir Henry Fanshawe, a friend and fellow collector was sent by the

Lord Treasurer as part of the committee to make an inventory of Somerset’s possessions,

and he located the paintings for Carleton.40

They were hanging in the ‘Bowling Alley.’

Carleton then set about trying to find another buyer for a group of pictures he didn’t

want; precipitously, Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel arrived yet again.

Arundel bought twelve of the fifteen paintings for two hundred pounds; the

remaining three, including the Bassano Creation, were purchased by Lord Danvers.41

38

While it is generally believed that Somerset was involved in the murder of Overbury, his guilt

was never more than presumption rather than actual fact and no charges were ever brought. He

remained in the Tower until 1622, but was not officially pardoned until 1624. Anne Somerset,

Unnatural Murder: Poison at the Court of James I, (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1997).

39

For Somerset’s unreliability as a patron see Anne Somerset, Unnatural Murder: Poison at the

Court of James I, (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1997), pp. 219-221.

40

Mary F. S. Hervey’s The Life, Correspondence and Collections of Thomas Howard Earl of

Arundel, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1921), p. 145, Ware Park, Fanshawe’s house,

was “replete with pictures, drawings, medals, books and other objects of interest.

41

W.N. Sainsbury, ed., Original Unpublished Papers Illustrative of the Life of Sir Peter Paul

Rubens as an Artist and Diplomatist Preserved in H.R.M State Paper Office, (London: Bradbury

105

Where these paintings finally settled is a mystery, though it has been suggested that the

‘Tintoretto’ Labyrinth is the painting known as The Pleasure Garden with a Maze at

Hampton Court Place (fig. 93). This painting is most likely by Lodewijk Toeput, called il

Pozzoserrato (1550—1605) who was a Flemish member of Tintoretto’s bottega in the

final years of the master’s life.42

In the small community of Flemish merchants and

artists living in Venice in the 1590s to early 1600s, it is not a stretch of the imagination to

assume that Nijs and Toeput had known one another. If the Hampton Court painting is

the one sent by Nijs it is possible he passed off Toeput’s work as a Tintoretto; he had

worked in the master’s studio, and for some buyers that was sufficient.

Carleton was also in possession of twenty-nine crates of antiquities that had been

meant for Somerset. After taking a loss on the paintings he was eager to unload them as

well, attempting to sell them to Arundel who showed no interest since he had just

received all of the antique sculpture from the collection of Lord Roos.43

For the moment,

Arundel came out the winner in 1616; he had bought Carleton’s pictures at a reduction,

been given Roos’ sculpture collection for free, had inherited what remained of

Somerset’s confiscated possessions, and assumed the title of Earl Marshal—making him

& Evans, 1859), p. 271; Public Record Office, State Papers, 14/86/145, Edward Sherburn to

Carleton, London, 25 May 1616.

42

Carlo Ridolfi, Le Meraviglie dell’Arte, (Milan: Arnaldo Forni, 2002), vol. 2, pp. 277-279; R. A.

Peltzer, “Per la conoscenza di Lodewyck Toeput (Pozzoserrato),” Arte Veneta, 5, (1951), pp.

122–125; L. Menegazzi, “Giunta a Ludovico Pozzoserrato,”Arte Veneta, 15, (1961), pp. 119-26;

Stefania Mason Rinaldi, Toeput a Treviso: Ludovico Pozzoserrato/Lodewijk Toeput, pittore

neerlandese nelle civiltà veneta del tardo cinquecento: Atti Seminario, (Treviso, 1987).

43

W.N. Sainsbury, ed., Original Unpublished Papers Illustrative of the Life of Sir Peter Paul

Rubens as an Artist and Diplomatist Preserved in H.R.M State Paper Office, (London: Bradbury

& Evans, 1859), pp. 272-273 for Roos’ sculpture.

106

the head of all English nobility. Within days of receiving the honor he led the procession

installing Charles Stuart as Prince of Wales; he had become one of the most powerful

men in England and a distinguished collector in just a few years.

Dealing in Venetian pictures had not worked out for Carleton the way he had

hoped, although he remained in contact with Nijs during his next posting to the

Netherlands and continued, from 1616 until 1622, to organize shipments of Venetian

paintings back to England.44

These shipments contained what Nijs described as

“paintings not over large by several good hands,” and “small pictures of the best

masters,” “portraits,” and a “selection of small old pictures,” –one can only imagine what

he was sending to Carleton, especially since many were valued at only a ducat each.45

In 1618 he would finally trade the crates of Somerset’s sculpture with Rubens in

exchange for nine of his own paintings.46

By this time, Carleton had become somewhat

savvier regarding the production of paintings; when Rubens initially offered him twelve

pictures, six “Original, by my hand,” and the rest studio pictures “done by one of my

44

There are 14 letters in the State Papers, Venice and 54 letters in the State Papers, Holland

between Carleton and Nijs, dating from March 1616, Carleton’s arrival at the Hague, until

October 1624.

45

Public Record Office, State Papers, 84/77/179, Daniel Nijs to Carelton, Venice, 2 June 1617;

Public Record Office, State Papers, 84/79/251, Daniel Nijs to Carelton, Venice, 31 October 1617;

Public Record Office, State Papers, 84/99/26, Daniel Nijs to Carelton, Venice, 4 January 1621;

Public Record Office, State Papers, 84/103/188, Daniel Nijs to Carelton, Venice, 2 November

1621; and Public Record Office, State Papers, 84/105/100, Daniel Nijs to Carelton, Venice, 25

January 1622 for the ducat value given.

46

For the exchange see letters in W.N. Sainsbury, ed., Original Unpublished Papers Illustrative

of the Life of Sir Peter Paul Rubens as an Artist and Diplomatist Preserved in H.R.M State Paper

Office, (London: Bradbury & Evans, 1859), pp. 23-44.

107

pupils, but the whole retouched by my hand,” he declined.47

That Carleton was unwilling

to take studio productions from Rubens is rather telling. Ten years earlier, an English

agent would not have cared who painted the pictures they commissioned, as long as they

had the right look and a well-known name attached to them. In a phrase that must have

eventually struck a note with Hans Tietze, Rubens protested the dismissal of his studio

work, saying “Your Excellency must not think that the others are mere copies, for they

are so well retouched by my hand that they are hardly distinguished from the originals.”48

While Carleton’s insistence on originals probably stemmed from his fear of being duped

(yet again), if he had not been physically present in the studio of Rubens and had instead

received his paintings from afar—as he did with the pictures Nijs was sending—he would

have never known the difference. In the end, Rubens and Carleton would come to a

happy resolution; the painter getting ninety classical statues and the ambassador nine out

of the twelve paintings, additional tapestries, and two thousand florins in cash.49

Carleton was to regard Arundel as the patron on whose favor he could rely, since

the others had fallen short. It may have been at the earl’s urging that Carleton continued

to bring consignments in from Venice; regardless, Carleton would be sure to continue to

47

Ruth Magurn, ed., The Letters of Peter Paul Rubens, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University

Press, 1971), pp. 102-103.

48

Ruth Magurn, ed., The Letters of Peter Paul Rubens, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University

Press, 1971), pp. 102-103; in Hans Tietze, “Master and Workshop in the Venetian Renaissance,”

Parnassus, 11, (1939), p. 45, his conclusion reads, “…a creation vastly indebted to assistants may

bear a more convincing evidence of the master’s genius than one which no hand other than his

has touched.”

49

Jeffrey Müller, Rubens: The Artist as Collector, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989),

p.77.

108

ingratiate himself with the earl, with the Marquise of Hamilton, and George Villiers,

Duke of Buckingham and the king’s new favorite.50

50

Despite the questionable outset of his career in politics; he was associated with the Gunpowder

Plot against the King in 1605, Carleton managed to keep his head above water and do rather well

for himself for the rest of his career. Though he tended to always arrive late to the finish; as was

the case with Prince Henry and the Earl of Somerset, and occasionally back the wrong horse, as

would be the case with Buckingham, he managed to avoid any sort of incarceration. He was

elevated to the peerage in 1626 as Baron Carleton, and made Viscount Dorchester in 1628, the

same year he became Secretary of State. While he sought security and political position during

his career, he was never wealthy nor was he overly corrupt. He left no heirs, dying of a fever on

15 February 1632. He is buried in Westminster Abbey. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography,

online edition. Also Linda Levy Peck, Court Patronage and Corruption in Early Stuart England

(London: Taylor & Francis, 1993).

109

4. Balthazar Gerbier and George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham

If there ever was a living example to describe the phrase, “fortune favors the

bold,” it would have been George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham (1592—1628) (fig.

94). The son of a small landowner from Brooksby, Lancashire, Villiers arrived in

London in 1614 where he caught the eye of King James. He soon usurped Robert Carr’s

position as the king’s favorite, assisted by a new set of clothes and the support of

interested parties looking to remove the Earl of Somerset’s influence within the court.

Elevated to Royal Cupbearer, he quickly had James’ undivided attention and in 1615 was

knighted and made a Gentleman of the Bedchamber. By this time Somerset was in

disgrace, and Villiers, through his charm, dashing good looks, and dancing abilities,

quickly rose through the ranks of the peerage.51

In 1616 he was made Baron Whaddon,

Viscount Villiers and a Knight of the Garter; in 1617 made Earl; in 1618 made Marquess

of Buckingham, and in 1619 made Lord Admiral of the Fleet, despite having no

knowledge of boats or seamanship.52

The Dukedom of Buckingham was recreated for

him in 1623 and Villiers remained James’ closest advisor until the king’s death in 1625.

51

Alan Stewart, The Cradle King: A Life of James VI & I, (London: Macmillan, 2003), pp. 264-

278.

52

Alan Stewart, The Cradle King: A Life of James VI & I, (London: Macmillan, 2003), pp. 279;

Roger Lockyer, Buckingham: The Life and Political Career of George Villiers, Duke of

Buckingham, 1572-1628, (New York: Routledge, 1981).

110

Never to miss an opportunity, Villiers had in the meantime made himself the best friend

of Charles, the now heir apparent.53

In 1623 the prince and Buckingham went to Madrid where they viewed the

extensive collections of Philip IV of Spain, inherited from Philip II.54

Charles had

observed the collection of the Earl of Arundel already, but although they shared an

interest in art, they were a generation apart and the earl was a serious and introspective

collector; essentially, not much fun. Additionally, the earl had been banished to his

country estates (after a brief imprisonment) due to his son’s unauthorized marriage to a

relation of the royal family. George Villiers on the other hand, had bravura, charisma and

impetuousness on his side along with the favor of the king; he was the perfect companion

for a young man who lacked all those qualities in himself, and he was quick to launch an

offensive to win the young prince over. The desire to acquire fine art provided the

perfect entrée; indeed, everyone noticed the prince’s interest—the Venetian Ambassador

53

There are many questions regarding the relationship between James and Villiers, speculated

upon during their lifetimes as well. Villiers did marry in 1620, to the Earl of Rutland’s daughter

Lady Katherine Manners with whom he had four children. But his relationship with James was

most likely a physical one as well as emotional. James nicknamed him “Steenie” after St.

Stephen, who was said to have the face of an angel. For further discussion see David Bergeron,

"Writing King James's Sexuality," Royal Subjects: Essays on the Writings of James VI and I, ed.

Fortier Fischlin, (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2002).

54

For Charles’ Spanish trip see Alexander Samson, ed., The Spanish Match: Prince Charles’s

Journey to Madrid, 1623, (London: Ashgate, 2006); and for the impression left by the art

collection, Sarah Schroth, “Charles I, the Duque de Lerma, and Veronese’s Edinburgh Mars and

Venus,” The Burlington Magazine, 139, (1997), pp. 548-550.

111

Girolamo Lando was already informing the Senate in 1622 that the heir to the English

throne loved “old paintings, especially those of our province and city.”55

By the time of his promotion to Lord Admiral in 1619 Villiers determined that an

art collection was a necessary attribute of noble status, and thus set about forming one as

quickly as possible with the greatest flair and aim to impress—the complete antithesis of

Arundel’s method.56

He bought in haste with a reckless manner, yet he achieved

remarkable results. His chief agent in this endeavor was Balthazar Gerbier (1591—

1667), a Huguenot refugee whose parents had arrived in England in 1616 (fig. 95).57

He

entered Buckingham’s household in 1619 and promptly set out in search of worthy

objects.58

Clever, resourceful, and unsavory in his own right, Gerbier was a shrewd

match for Daniel Nijs, with whom he would do much business in Venice.

55

“The Relation of England” of Girolamo Lando, addressed to the Doge and Senate, 21

September 1622, Rawdon Brown, ed., Calendar of State Papers and Manuscripts, Venice,

(London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1869-1883), see, 1621-1623, 17, p. 452.

56

Jonathan Brown, Kings and Connoisseurs, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), p. 24.

57

Edward Chaney, “Notes Towards a Biography of Sir Balthazar Gerbier,” The Evolution of the

Grand Tour, ed. Edward Chaney, (London: Cass, 1998), pp. 215-225.

58

Gerbier solicited Buckingham for employment, offering his services as a “common pen man”

as he referred to himself. The Bodleian Library, Oxford has letters from Gerbier to Buckingham,

MS. Tanner 73, ff. 119-123. Six of these are reprinted in Godfrey Goodman, Court of King James

I, (London: Richard Bentley, 1839), the complete text which is available online. One cannot

judge Horace Walpole too harshly for dismissing Gerbier as he did; the letters are saccharine

drivel that would embarrass a rabid preteen fangirl of any boy-band on the market today. “I feel a

thousand regrets at setting out without having seen your face and presence” p. 266; “your

Excellency’s happy voyage makes my heart leap with joy” p. 261; “my hand trembles as it forms

the word adieu” p. 267; even in the context of the literary style of the period, one’s gag reflex is

triggered. Horace Walpole, Anecdotes of Painting in England, 3 vols., (London: Henry Bohn,

1849), text available online.

112

By this time Henry Wotton had returned to the city for another appointment as

ambassador. With his assistance and that of Nijs, Gerbier purchased eleven paintings

including Titian’s Ecce Homo, now in Vienna (fig. 96), and Tintoretto’s Christ and the

Woman Taken in Adultery, now in Dresden (fig. 97).59

The Ecce Homo was painted in

1543 for the Flemish merchant Giovanni d’Anna, and it remained in Venice until

Gerbier’s 1621 purchase.60

It is possible Nijs and his Flemish connections may have

helped in the transaction, but firm evidence has yet to come to light. We do know that

both paintings, despite their sizes (7’x11’ respectively) were rolled and wrapped in

waterproof cloth and packed in cases for their transport over the Alps and onward to

England. While it is interesting to see what expenses Gerbier was listing and the amount

each one was costing the Duke, it is also interesting to see what he does not list.61

For

example, Gerbier notes the four occasions he had to pay a customs fee; Milan and

Montserrat, Lyons, Paris and Boulogne. In Lyons he had to pay to have the crates

unpacked and repacked for the customs examination; in Boulogne he had to pay to

remove goods from the country, but he paid no customs or exit tax when leaving Venice.

59

Kunsthistorisches Wien, acc# Inv.-Nr. GG 73; Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden, acc#

Gal.-Nr. 270 A. It is difficult to give solid attribution to the Tintoretto, it may be Domenico rather

than Jacopo.

60

The painting entered the Kunsthistorisches collection in 1649, the date of Charles I death; it

passed into his hands after the death of Buckingham in 1628. See object provenance information

on the museum website.

61

This information comes from the Tanner documents in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS

Tanner 73, ff. 119-123. See I. G. Philip, “Balthazar Gerbier and the Duke of Buckingham’s

Pictures,” The Burlington Magazine, 99, (1957), pp. 155-156 for a transcription of the full

document.

113

This suggests that some bribery took place on his way out of the city; either by Nijs or by

Wotton, who would have known the right low level bureaucrat to pay off. Given the

chance to make some extra money, no one would ask questions about the rolls of canvas

be loaded aboard ship. Certainly, it makes more sense that Gerbier would choose to

remove the paintings from their frames and ship them rolled; they would draw less

attention than if they were packed into giant unwieldy crates. Unlike Wotton, Carleton

and as we shall see, Lord Feilding, Gerbier did not have an official position of State

which he could use to garner favors such as customs waivers from the Venetian

government.

Buckingham chose well when he hired the resourceful Gerbier as his agent

abroad, and he in turn made use of the duke’s political connections and purchasing

power. Gerbier had secured his reputation in London with the purchase of the Ecce

Homo; at £275 (1100 Venetian ducats) it was unprecedented.62

Even Arundel had never

spent that amount on a single painting. The collection was placed in his rooms in

Whitehall, where his rivals could see it. In many ways the trend of these English

collections was similar, though on a smaller scale, to the preferences of the Hapsburg

dynasty. Emperor Charles V, Philip II, and Rudolph II had dominated Europe from

Spain, across Italy and to the Low Countries. Their patronage and buying power

reflected the idea that power promotes culture, and that political power was physically

expressed in the art that was produced—which was precisely the same concept extolled

by the Venetians in the pictures they created. By virtue of subject matter; historical

62

Lita-Rose Betcherman, “Balthazar Gerbier in seventeenth-century Italy,” History Today, 11,

(1961), pp. 325-331.

114

event, mythological and allegorical association, and portraiture, these families were

constantly reasserting their position, their control, and their ties to one another through

their patronage.

The English, always separate and by the seventeenth century differentiated by

their religious standpoint (and unlike the Netherlands never occupied), approached

painting and patronage only as connoisseurs. Their interests valued the aesthetic

qualities—composition, color, proportion and style—of their purchases before anything

else. That is not to say these considerations were lacking in the Hapsburg dynasty, but it

was balanced by their political and religious concerns. According to Henry Wotton,

connoisseurship was the most admirable intellectual accomplishment of the king himself,

“for what more learned than to behold the mute eloquence of lights and shadowes and

silver poesy of lineaments, and as it were living marbles?”63

Stars that burn brightest burn the quickest, and Buckingham’s meteoric rise was

not to last. His political and military ineptitude, corruption, overspending, and egotism

finally caught up to him, and on 23 August 1628 he was stabbed to death at an inn in

Portsmouth by a man named John Felton.64

King Charles had to bury his friend in

Westminster Abbey at night to avoid an uproar, and Buckingham’s collection would be

63

Henry Wotton, A Panegyrick to King Charles, (London, 1646), pp. 102-106.

64

Roger Lockyer, Buckingham: The Life and Political Career of George Villiers, Duke of

Buckingham, 1572-1628, (New York: Routledge, 1981); Kevin A. Sharpe, “The Earl of Arundel,

His Circle and the Opposition to the Duke of Buckingham,” Faction and Parliament: Essays in

Early Stuart History, ed. Kevin A. Sharpe, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978), pp. 209-244.

Buckingham’s assassination was one of those random acts of violence that everyone was

planning, but no one would perform.

115

the one of the first available during the Commonwealth Sale of 1649.65

Gerbier would be

absorbed into Charles’s household where he was sent to serve as resident agent in

Brussels from 1631—1641. After the execution of the king he cobbled together a living

through a series of ventures, none of which were ever thriving. Always the chameleon,

he pledged his loyalty to Cromwell and the republican government only to then attempt

to win royal appointments during the Restoration. He was unsuccessful.66

65

Randall Davies, “An Inventory of the Duke of Buckingham’s Pictures at York House in 1635,”

The Burlington Magazine, 10, (1907), pp. 376+379-382; Philip McEvansoneya, “A Note on the

Duke of Buckingham's Inventory,” The Burlington Magazine, 128, (1986), p. 607 and Philip

McEvansoneya, “The sequestration and dispersal of the Buckingham collection,” Journal of the

History of Collections, 8, (1996), pp. 133-154; finally for the sale itself, Jonathon Brown, The

Sale of the Century, (New Have: Yale University Press, 2002); Arthur MacGregor, ed., The Late

King’s Goods: Collections, Possessions, and Patronage in the Light of the Commonwealth Sale

Inventories, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989).

66

Lita-Rose Betcherman, Buckingham’s Man: Balthazar Gerbier, (New York: Bev Editions,

2011).

116

5. Aletheia Talbot, Countess Arundel: A Troubling Affair in Venice

When the Countess of Arundel (fig. 98) returned to Venice in 1620 with her two

sons in tow, she settled into the Palazzo Mocenigo and quickly became a larger than life

presence within the city. Her sons were sent to the university in Padua, and she remained

living without her husband in the Veneto until 1623. Always an avid shopper, well

versed in art and architecture, and fluent in Italian; she had an extravagant temperament

which had to be rather vexing to Henry Wotton, who was on the last leg of his diplomatic

post and therefore responsible to her needs.67

Equally disagreeable to him was her

interest in the arts; she was a collector in her own right, quite apart from her husband.

Wotton, still working for Buckingham, wasn’t interested in any competition—especially

in his own backyard.

While nothing specific is known of her collection purchases during this period

in Venice, it is known the countess attempted to lure artists back to England with her,

though she was unsuccessful. One of these artists was Tizianello, the grandson of Titian,

who after being paid by the countess ran off with the funds without providing services.

In a bid to mollify her, he dedicated his Breve compendio della vita del famoso Titiano

Vecellio di Cadore (1622) to her, praising her patronage and noting the works by Titian

in the Arundel collection.68

His attempt failed and she complained to the Senate that

67

See David Howarth, “The Patronage and Collecting of Aletheia, Countess of Arundel 1606-

54,” Journal of the History of Collections, 10, (1998), pp. 128.

68

Tizianello Vecellio, Breve compendio della vita del famoso Titiano Vecellio di Cadore,

(Venetia: Santo Grillo & fratelli, 1622). British Library, Rare Books, 810.i.3. A copy exists in the

117

“Not content with deceiving her and taking her money he has gone on to slander her

saying he did not go because he feared she would take him to Spain, whither she was

going from Genoa.”69

The Advogador Vendramin was accordingly dispatched to make

the arrest.

The countess had commissioned Odoardo Fialetti to engrave the portrait of Titian

for Tizianello’s biography; the same Fialetti who published Il vero modo et ordine per

dissegnar tutte le parti et membra del corpo humano in 1608. The Arundel’s owned a

copy of his book, and long after her death Boschini recalls that her nipotino, or nephew,

was still using it to practice drawing.70

Fialetti also dedicated his reproductions after

Pordenone’s Udine Palazzo Tinghi frescos to the Earl of Arundel and worked with Henry

Wotton and Daniel Nijs, who sold to the earl on occasion.71

At some point during

Wotton’s tenure as ambassador, (the date is unclear), Fialetti painted one of his audiences

before Doge Leonardo Donato and his councilors (fig. 99).72

Meanwhile, Lady Arundel

Bibliothèque National de France, BNF, Tolbiac – Rez-de-jardin–magasin, RES–K–689 (5) and is

also available online.

69

Rawdon Brown, ed., Calendar of State Papers and Manuscripts, Venice, (London: Longmans,

Green & Co., 1869-1883), see 1623-1625, 18, item 849, 11 March 1625, p. 607. It was Isaac

Wake, Wotton’s replacement in Venice who officially made the complaint before the Venetian

Senate.

70

David Howarth, Lord Arundel and his Circle, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985), p.

239, n. 15.

71

See Deborah Howard, The Image of Venice: Fialetti and Sir Henry Wotton, (London: Paul

Holberton Publishing, 2014) for their association.

72

Wotton bequeathed the painting to King Charles in his will. It is now at Hampton Court Palace,

acc# ML 484. Doge Donato was elected 10 January 1606 and served until his death 16 July

1612; we can assume the painting was made during those six years.

118

also tried to help Antonio Moretti, a painter who was in jail for debt but there is no record

of his travel to London either.

It is not surprising then that a scandal in Venice would eventually find the

countess; foreigners, no matter how rich, were treated with suspicion and it is important

to understand that the Venetian government was ever-watchful. Alone in a foreign land

with a conspicuously absent husband, by nature independent and used to getting her

way—through funds or sheer force of will—the Lady Arundel was headed for disaster,

hurried along by Wotton who wished her to be gone, and arrived in the person of Antonio

Foscarini.

Venetian patrician, ambassador in London from 1611 to 1615; he had been

knighted in France and was prone to licentious and eccentric behavior. While living in

London it was reported that “some Catholic women of very noble birth were invited to

dinner….Ambassador Foscarini took a glass in his hand, which had the form of a virile

member; he filled it with wine and invited one of the women to drink from it…she

inclining her eyes with a modest blush, got up from the table. Lord Foscarini placed the

glass in the front opening of her underwear and distressed her by embracing her. As she

fled he grabbed her by the shoulders…she exclaimed saying she would make it known at

Court….Lord Foscarini responded, “Excuse me, this is how we behave in Venice.”73

73

Archivio di Stato di Venezia, Inquisitori di stato, 80, busta 155, unpublished document; from

the list of accusations used in the interrogation during the trial of Foscarini, January 1616.

119

He had attempted to have an audience with Lady Arundel when in London, but

she refused him—goodness knows why.74

On his recall to Venice he would be replaced

by Gregorio Barbarigo, another Venetian contact of the Arundel’s and as mentioned,

buyer of the remainder of Titian’s studio from his son.75

Perhaps it was Foscarini’s lewd

behavior; perhaps he had simply stopped caring about the supposed seriousness of his

position, but the character flaws began to rack up. “Lord Luca Tron blamed Foscarini for

irreverence at Mass, having made a fart at the elevation of the host.”76

Or, “When

important business had to be dealt with the Ambassador Foscarini…had recourse to the

drawing of lots.”77

And most damning of all, “When the strength of the Republic was

praised he likened it to a little drunken ape masquerading as a fierce lion.”78

Foscarini

was in trouble.

If it wasn’t another patrician tattling on him, then it was his secretarial staff at the

London embassy reporting to the Senate about his misconduct. The atmosphere with his

74


Green & Co., 1869-1883), see 1617, 13, p. 507.

75

Carlo Ridolfi, Le Meraviglie dell’Arte, (Milan: Arnaldo Forni, 2002), vol. 1, pp. 261-262.

Jennifer Fletcher, “The Arundel’s in the Veneto,” Apollo, 144, (1996), pp. 63-69.

76

Archivio di Stato di Venezia, Inquisitori di stato, 49, busta 155, unpublished document;


Green & Co., 1869-1883), see, 1615, 14, 26 September 1615, p. 29. Having been to mass in San

Marco, I can say with authority that the acoustics (and air flow) are such that it would be

impossible to tell from which direction a fart came. I believe this is a 17th

century case of “he who

smelt it, dealt it,” or in the Italian, “colui che annusò, ha fatto.”

77

Archivio di Stato di Venezia, Inquisitori di stato, 49, busta 155, unpublished document.

78


Green & Co., 1869-1883), see 1615, 14, p. 594, no. 19.

120

first secretary, Giulio Muscorno, was so poisoned that he left Foscarini and returned to

Venice in 1615, only to be replaced by a man name Rizzardo.79

Having heard about

Foscarini’s antics already, Rizzardo came with the instruction to spy on his superior and

report home. This was standard policy in any Venetian embassy, but now Rizzardo knew

he had something specific to look for.80

By 1622 Foscarini was back in Venice with a questionable reputation when the

attention of Gerolamo Vano fell upon him. Vano was the low level handler of several

embassy spies, including those in the Spanish house who tipped Foscarini for passing

information to their superiors. Vano passed on this intelligence to the Council of Ten,

who quietly had Foscarini arrested and two weeks later discreetly strangled in prison.

Not so subtly, his body was displayed hanging upside-down by one leg from the gallows

in Piazza San Marco; the sign of a traitor.81

Unfortunately for the countess it was also

reported that Foscarini had been seen at her home:

“[It] is generally agreed that Foscarini went out at night alone,...dressed

bizarrely, to the house of the Countess of Arundel…[T]hey say that

Foscarini initially began to visit her as a compliment, and that…after a

short while meetings with the Imperial resident were arranged, which

inevitably led to Spain…[I]t is publicly said that the countess has been

79


Green & Co., 1869-1883), see 1615, 13, pp. 467, 482-483.

80

Jonathan Walker, “Antonio Foscarini in the City of Crossed Destinies,” Rethinking History, 5,

(2001), pp. 305-334. Spying was standard practice for Venetian diplomats and politicians; if they

weren’t reporting on foreigners they were reporting on each other. Every ambassadorial

household in Venice had at least one spy (if not two, for confirmation) including the English.

Everyone was aware of the practice, therefore everyone was naturally suspicious.

81

See Jonathan Walker, Pistols! Treason! Murder! The Rise and Fall of a Master Spy,

(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007) for the full sordid tale.

121

secretly ordered to leave Venice within three days.”

23 April 1622, Dispatch of the Florentine Resident82

There are two implications being made. The first is one of an adulterous sexual nature;

the second is one of espionage. To further complicate matters for the countess, her co-

conspirators were all Catholics. While she was Catholic herself there was still an uneasy

balance with Protestantism in England, and Catholics were generally viewed with

suspicion. This would be a problem both abroad and at home.

It is unclear whether it was purposeful or simply inept, but Wotton waited a

fortnight before informing the countess that she was believed to be complicit in a plot to

pass information to the Spanish and that Foscarini was the one to implicate her. By

stalling on the news he may have tried to frighten her into a sudden departure, but he

miscalculated her response badly. Instead of taking flight she demanded an audience

with the Doge and Senate, who heard her case and claimed they had never considered her

involved at all. In fact they had come to believe Foscarini was innocent as well, but the

declaration came too late for him. Hastening to repair the damage the Venetians feted the

countess across the city and sent numerous gifts, but she had decided it was time to go

and shortly thereafter, left Venice in October 1623.

When she departed the customs officials released seventy bales of goods, listed as

“used” materials from her household. This suggests there were no paintings or art

82

Documented and printed in S. Romanin, Storia documentata di Venezia, vol. 7, (Venice:

Naraovich, 1858), p. 586.

122

objects, but they could have been omitted or considered as “gifts” and not listed.83

She

did manage to bring a gondola, several maids, a Moorish servant and live snails home to

London, as she trundled her way northward with her sons in tow. Thanks to the happy

resolution of a potentially dangerous political situation, she always retained a regard for

Venetians at home, inviting them to masques and banquets at Arundel House.84

Provided

of course, they did not arrive bearing novelty glassware.

83

The Arundel’s were afforded a ‘passport’ by the Venetian authorities allowing them to

transport art without the usual customs declaration. While references are scattered there is record

of Arundel (through his agent William Petty) transporting ‘little paintings’ and ‘designes’ through

the Venetian embassy in the Hague in 1636, see British Museum, Add. MS. 15970, fol. 63, letter

the Petty from Arundel dated 3 February 1637. Christina Anderson, “Daniel Nijs's Cabinet and its

Sale to Lord Arundel in 1636,” The Burlington Magazine, 154, (2012), pp. 172-176. These may

be Arundel’s purchases from the Nijs collection. It is not remiss to assume the same privileges

were given the Lady Arundel on her departure--given their desire to appease her--and any art

works were sent separately or not listed at all for that reason.

84

See Jennifer Fletcher, “The Arundels in the Veneto,” Apollo, 144, (1996), p. 67 for a list of

items in her baggage, and her hospitality toward Venetians. Rawdon Brown, ed., Calendar of

State Papers and Manuscripts, Venice, (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1869-1883), see 1640-

1642, 25, p. 190 and 359 for hosting Venetians. David Howarth, “The Patronage and Collecting

of Aletheia, Countess of Arundel 1606-1654,” Journal of the History of Collections, 10, (1998),

pp. 125-137 for a summary of the details of Foscarini and her time in Venice.

123

6. ‘hunting after pictures’: Basil, Viscount Feilding and James, 3rd

Marquis, 1st

Duke of Hamilton85

James, 3rd

Marquis of Hamilton, (1606—1649) (fig. 100) entered the chase for

paintings later than Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel and George Villiers, Duke of

Buckingham, but he managed to win and lose them in a spectacular fashion. Born into

the leading family of Scottish nobility with a direct line of succession to the throne of

Scotland, the 3rd

Marquis, and from 1643 Duke of Hamilton, found himself a pawn in

Buckingham’s machinations early in life. His father, also James, and 2nd

Marquis of

Hamilton (1589—1625) had died suddenly at the age of thirty-six; some suggested by

poisoning.86

Prince Charles invited Henry Wotton to investigate the matter, and he

described Hamilton as the ‘near friend and ally’ of Buckingham. Of course, Wotton also

said that when Hamilton was shown a list of people Buckingham intended to poison he

‘read it and put it in his pocket.’87

85

See Paul Shakeshaft, “To Much Bewiched with Those Intysing Things:” The Letters of James,

Third Marquis of Hamilton and Basil, Viscount Feilding, Concerning Collecting in Venice 1635-

1639,” The Burlington Magazine, 128, (1986), p. 124, xix for quote.

86

This claim was circulated widely by George Eglisham who published Forerunner of Revenge

in 1626, alleging that Buckingham had poisoned Hamilton and King James, see John Malham,

ed., Harleian Miscellany, vol 2, (London: R. Dutton, 1809), pp. 69-81; and Anne Somerset,

Unnatural Murder: Poison at the Court of James I, (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1997), for

the availability and ease of using poisons at court.

87

For this information and Wotton’s quotes, see pp. 291-297 in Logan Pearsall Smith, The Life

and Letters of Sir Henry Wotton, vol. 2 (Oxford, 1907). Clearly Buckingham was walking around

with a hate list, and Hamilton did what any rational person would do—especially if his name was

on it.

124

The elder James had been a political supporter and confidante of Buckingham’s

since 1617, when through the duke’s influence he was made a Privy Councilor.88

Their

political alliance continued almost until James’s death, right before which their

relationship had badly deteriorated, but it was enough time, unfortunately for his son, to

allow Buckingham to solidify their families association. By 1620, the teenage Earl of

Arran (as the 3rd

Marquis was known) was brought to court by his father and underwent a

sort of “trial by fire” initiation in the Whitehall cult of collecting. In June of 1622 he was

married, in front of the king, to the nine year old daughter of Buckingham’s sister Susan,

named Mary Feilding. It was a marriage he would bitterly resent. Susan was married to

William Feilding, made 1st Earl of Denbigh in September 1622, and she also had a son

named Basil, who was five years older than his wedded little sister.89

The young Hamilton would have witnessed the collection building going on at

Whitehall during his sojourn at court; at the time of his own marriage, Balthazar Gerbier

and Henry Wotton were preparing to send the first consignments from Venice to

Buckingham.90

He also would have known the budding tastes of Prince Charles, who had

yet to make the 1623 trip to Madrid that Arran would accompany him on. It was from his

own father, the Lord Steward, that he would learn the most however. The elder Hamilton

88

See Roger Lockyer, Buckingham: The Life and Political Career of George Villiers, Duke of

Buckingham, 1572-1628, (New York: Routledge, 1981), p. 36, “by my Lord of Buckingham’s

means.”

89

Philip McEvansoneya, “An Unpublished Inventory of the Hamilton Collection in the 1620s and

the Duke of Buckingham’s Pictures,” The Burlington Magazine, 134, (1992), p. 524.

90

I. G. Philip, “Balthazar Gerbier and the Duke of Buckingham’s Pictures,” The Burlington

Magazine, 99, (1957), pp. 155-156.

125

had traveled to Venice in 1610, where he had been presented to the Doge by Wotton (on

his first stint as ambassador) and received permission from the Senate to view the State

Treasury and Armory.91

An early bias for Venetian pictures had taken root, and between

1617 when his position at court became secure and his death in 1625, the 2nd

Marquise of

Hamilton was actively building his own collection.

By 1622 Hamilton’s collection was significant enough that he is mentioned by

Tizianello in his Breve compendio della vita del famoso Titiano Vecellio di Cadore,

dedicated to Lady Arundel, alongside the prince, Arundel, Pembroke and Buckingham as

the most important of English collectors. It is likely that he built his collection on his

own initiative rather than inheriting a group of pictures, and it is also likely that Wotton

and Carleton could have been supplying him.92

As we saw earlier in the chapter, it was

during this same period from 1617 to 1624 that Carleton was still receiving shipments

from Daniel Nijs in Venice. While the descriptions from Nijs’ letters don’t match the

majority of descriptions from Hamilton’s inventory, in some cases they could. Nijs

describes “portraits” and “small works by good old masters”—Hamilton records “a cup

with fruits and grapes,” and “5 pictures of divers masters,” with “2 little landscapes of

91


Green & Co., 1869-1883), see 1607-1610, pp. 408-409.

92

For a list of the principal patrons of art in England at the time, see Henry Peacham, The

Gentleman’s Exercise, (London, 1612), where the Earls of Arundel, Worcester, Southampton,

Pembroke, Suffolk and Northampton along with ‘many Knights and Gentleman’ are listed, pp. 7-

8.

126

Andrea Chiavon,” and “2 peeces of little children of old tintoret,” to list just a few.93

It is

entirely possible he was fleshing out the better and larger works of his collection with

smaller pieces from Carleton.

Additionally, it is not clear that this list of forty six paintings is the extent of his

collection. The inventory was drawn up and presented to Buckingham after Hamilton’s

death; on the understanding, either through the duke’s own presumption or through an

accord agreed upon at the marriage of Arran and Mary Feilding, that Buckingham had

choice of the lot before handing off the remains to Hamilton’s son. They also may just be

the paintings found in the Whitehall apartments of Hamilton, or only a selection of those

he kept with him in London.

After his father’s death, the now 3rd

Marquise of Hamilton remained at court for

the coronation of King Charles in February 1626 but left for Scotland soon after. He was

uneasy as a member of the inner circle and his rivalry with Buckingham became

intolerable. Retreating to his country estates in Scotland offered relief, and he did not

return to London until after the assassination of Buckingham in 1628.

Once the duke was dead, Hamilton was free to make his rise at court and was

soon appointed Master of the Horse, then Privy Councillor. He spent several years

93

The complete list, numbering 46 items is reprinted by Philip McEvansoneya, “An Unpublished

Inventory of the Hamilton Collection in the 1620s and the Duke of Buckingham’s Pictures,” The

Burlington Magazine, 134, (1992), pp. 524-526, list on p. 526. The original document is in the

Duke of Hamilton’s collection, Lennoxlove, Hamilton MSS M4/3, and see this article for the

history of the 2nd

Marquis’ collection. It should be noted that Wotton wrote to Buckingham in

December 1622 regarding a picture of ‘a dish of grapes’ he had sent to the Countess of

Denbigh—possibly the same picture in Hamilton’s collection. Logan Pearsall Smith, ed., The Life

and Letters of Sir Henry Wotton, 2 vols, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1907), vol. 2, p. 257.

127

abroad campaigning with Gustavus Adolphus and finally returned from Saxony in 1632.

It was between his homecoming and new campaigns in 1638 that Hamilton would be

constantly by the king’s side, and it was during this time of relative calm that he would

turn to collecting to further solidify his place at court. Hamilton shared the king’s

company, trust, and interests, and their friendship was marked by their exchange of

pictures.94

It may have been at Hamilton’s urging that Basil, Lord Feilding (1608—1675)

was appointed Ambassador to Venice on 14 September 1634 (fig 101). Hamilton’s

brother-in-law by marriage to Mary Feilding, the deceased Buckingham’s niece, Feilding

was the son of influential courtiers—his mother was principal lady in waiting to the

queen and his father was Master of the Kings Wardrobe—and he was familiar with the

major Whitehall collections, well traveled and ‘of a good manner and the best

education.’95

He would be the ideal agent for Hamilton in Venice. From 1635 until

1639, spanning the entirety of his post in Venice, Feilding and Hamilton communicated

on a regular basis,96

with Feilding responsible for all of Hamilton’s major purchases

94

Paul Shakeshaft, “To Much Bewiched with Those Intysing Things:” The Letters of James,

Third Marquis of Hamilton and Basil, Viscount Feilding, Concerning Collecting in Venice 1635-

1639,” The Burlington Magazine, 128, (1986), pp. 114-178, p. 115 for this sentiment.

95


Green & Co., 1869-1883), see 1632-1636, 23, pp. 234-244.

96

It is interesting to note that the letters often have two dates; Feilding used the Gregorian

calendar, while Hamilton preferred the English, or Julian calendar. The difference is ten days.

The Julian calendar was adjusted in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII but was only adopted in Catholic

countries and territories, the English did not adopt its use until 1752.

128

including the collections of Bartolomeo della Nave, Procurator Priuli, and Nicolo

Renieri.97

King Charles was underwriting the purchases made by Hamilton who could not

otherwise afford such massive investments; consequently the king felt he had a claim to

the paintings as well.98

Feilding, for his part, was attempting to please both the king and

his brother-in-law while following the initiative of his predecessors Wotton, Carleton and

Wake as ambassador turned art agent. When his official charge of diplomacy faltered, he

would compensate by redoubling his efforts at purchasing art.99

Their correspondence

reflects that in the space of two and a half years Feilding viewed and considered

obtaining ten different collections in the Veneto. He was such a presence in the city that

Ridolfi refers to him by name in the lives of Titian, Schiavone, Pordenone, Veronese,

Bassano, Catena, Nadalino da Murano, Palma Vecchio, Zelotti, Tinelli, and Tintoretto.

The Venetians were reluctant, even in the 1630s, to use state pictures as a political and

97

For the lists of paintings purchased from della Nave and Renieri, see E.K. Waterhouse,

“Paintings from Venice for Seventeenth Century England: Some Records of a Forgotten

Transaction,” Italian Studies, 7, (1952), pp. 1-23; for their correspondence see Paul Shakeshaft,

“To Much Bewiched with Those Intysing Things:” The Letters of James, Third Marquis of

Hamilton and Basil, Viscount Feilding, Concerning Collecting in Venice 1635-1639,” The

Burlington Magazine, 128, (1986), pp. 114-178 reprinting a selection concerning art. Fifty letters

from the Marquis and one hundred sixty letter from Feilding survive in the Warwick County

Record Office, Newnham Paddox Papers, CR 2017, MSS C1/52-101 (Hamilton) and the Scottish

Record Office GD 406/1/9443-9589 (Feilding).

98

H. L. Rubenstein, Captain Luckless, James, First Duke of Hamilton: 1606-1649, (Edinburgh,

1975), p. 46.

99

The Senate was displeased by Feilding’s handling of the Andrea della Nave and the Buoni

scandals, Rawdon Brown, ed., Calendar of State Papers and Manuscripts, Venice, (London:

Longmans, Green & Co., 1869-1883), see 1636-1639, 24, p.137-171 (unrelated to della Nave

collection family).

129

diplomatic balm in their relations; but they did make concessions for the English not

recorded for other parties. For example, Feilding was allowed to view the collection of

Senator Domenico Ruzzini, which, had the Senator not been granted official permission

to do would have been a treasonable offence.100

Unlike the buying and selling environment of Boschini in the 1660s, where

quality paintings were difficult to come by and families were reluctant to part with their

minimal and meager remains, the first three decades of the seventeenth century were a

consumer’s paradise. Del Sera had only arrived in Venice in 1632 at the age of eighteen;

he was a young twenty-something trying to curry the favor of the Medici when Feilding

was making his biggest acquisitions. Renieri had arrived about ten years earlier and

benefited from the opportunity; he would be selling to Feilding. In April 1637, the first

eighteen paintings from Renieri arrived in London; Hamilton would buy thirty two in

total.101

Renieri’s taste included examples by a younger generation of painters, including

Varotari and Fetti, and outside Venice Reni, Poussin and Lanfranco; he was informed by

his own training as a painter and recognized talent. This preference appears to have

rubbed off on Feilding, whose appreciation of modern painting was more advanced than

100

For the permission see Rawdon Brown, ed., Calendar of State Papers and Manuscripts,

Venice, (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1869-1883), see 1632-1636, 23, p. 373. For the

restrictions on ambassadors while in Venice see Francis Haskell, Patrons and Painters, (New

Haven: Yale University Press, 1980), p. 245.

101

E.K. Waterhouse, “Paintings from Venice for Seventeenth Century England: Some Records of

a Forgotten Transaction,” Italian Studies, 7, (1952), pp. 21-23 for the list of Renieri’s paintings.

See also Simona Savini Branca, Il Collezionismo Veneziano nel’600, (Padua: CEDAM, 1965),

pp. 264-268 for Renieri’s collection. He would continue to build his collection and eventually sell

it by public lottery in 1666. Also, Jaynie Anderson, “A Further Inventory of Gabriel Vendramin’s

Collection,” The Burlington Magazine, 121, (1979), pp. 639-648 for the origin of some of

Renieri’s paintings.

130

Hamilton’s; his response to the Renieri offer is unenthusiastic, and upon seeing the

shipment complains that Feilding had bought copies, not originals.102

The issue of copies mixed in with originals was a problem with the della Nave

collection as well. In his first viewing, Feilding judged the majority to be studio works,

although in consultation with Renieri, the artist Tiberio Tinelli, and his purchasing

competitor William Petty (who was working on behalf of Arundel), he eventually gave a

higher opinion on some of the pictures.103

On a side note, Tinelli had studied under

Giovanni Contarini (mentioned in preceding chapters) and was known as a portrait

painter for Venetian aristocrats and merchants. His best known work, dated 1637, is a

portrait of the wealthy merchant Lodovico Widmann, who had amassed an impressive art

collection of his own (fig. 102).104

The della Nave group had become available in 1636,

102

See letter xvi for the Renieri offer, Scottish Record Office, GD 406/1/9573, Feilding to

Hamilton, Venice, 3 April 1637, “The pictures are all originalls though some of them made by

modern painters” Letter xxviii for Hamilton’s lackluster response and issue of copies, Warwick

County Record Office Feilding MS C1/84, Hamilton to Feilding, Whitehall, 22 July 1637,

“manie of them be bot ordinaire peisses” and “sume coppies lykwys as those of guido and the

night peeis of Bassan.” All from Paul Shakeshaft, “To Much Bewiched with Those Intysing

Things:” The Letters of James, Third Marquis of Hamilton and Basil, Viscount Feilding,

Concerning Collecting in Venice 1635-1639,” The Burlington Magazine, 128, (1986), pp. 114-

178.

103

Letter xxv for the problem of copies, Warwick County Record Office, Feilding MS C72/2,

Hamilton to Feilding, Whitehall, no date, “I cannot knoe which are coppies and which are

originalles you having alredie discovered some to be coppies thatt was sett doune for originalles

makes the rest to be more fered.” Letter xxxvii for Petty and Feilding together at the study of

della Nave, Scottish Record Office, GD 406/1/9508. Feilding to Hamilton, Venice, 8/18

September 1637, “Yesterday I carri’d Mr Petty with me to view Bertolo della Naves study wch he

found to be so perfect, and full of rare peeces, that itt was estimated by him att 14m ducats” in

Paul Shakeshaft, “To Much Bewiched with Those Intysing Things:” The Letters of James, Third

Marquis of Hamilton and Basil, Viscount Feilding, Concerning Collecting in Venice 1635-1639,”

The Burlington Magazine, 128, (1986).

104

Francesca Bottacin, Tiberio Tinelli "Pittore e Cavaliere" (1587-1639), (Mariano del Friuli:

Edizioni della Laguna, 2004); Fabrizio Magani, Il collezionismo e la commitenza artistica della

131

but negotiations stretched on until 1638, with bidders including Feilding, Petty and the

Spanish ambassador. Hamilton was extremely suspicious of Petty, having formed an

avid dislike of his employer, the Earl of Arundel. This may have been due to the earl’s

shameless manipulation of the art market for his own gain, or simply a remaining vestige

of the Buckingham/Arundel competition that Hamilton would have been privy to.105

He

warns “beware Master Petty,” but Feilding had made up his own mind.106

It would only

be after buying the collection for 15,000 ducats (£2500) that Feilding would realize Petty

had bid up the price on purpose, and was only interested in securing a few particular

items.107

famiglia Widmann, patrizi veneziani, dal seicento all'ottocento, (Venice: Istituto Veneto di

Scienze Lettere ed Arti, 1989), pp. 23-24.

105

For example, Arundel bought the Nijs cabinet in 1636, after he’d gone bankrupt from the

Gonzaga sale and was trying to recoup his loss. Nijs was in a desperate situation and Arundel had

no qualms about taking advantage. He was also known to encourage his agent Petty to bid up a

sale if it looked as though he wasn’t going to get it. Christina Anderson, “Daniel Nijs's Cabinet

and its Sale to Lord Arundel in 1636,” The Burlington Magazine, 154, (2012), pp. 172-176. The

argument for the Arundel/Villiers rivalry and subsequent bargaining methods in Kevin Sharp,

“The Earl of Arundel : His Circle and the Opposition to the Duke of Buckingham,” Faction and

Parliament, ed. Kevin Sharp, (London: Methuen, 1981), pp. 209-244.

106

Letter L, for Feilding’s view of Petty, Scottish Record Office, GD 406/1/9493, Feilding to

Hamilton, Venice, 5/15 December 1637, “setting aside this profession of hunting after pictures,

wherein his [Petty’s] eagerness doth bring himselfe, and others into inconveniences, he is a very

honest, and able man…”

107

Letter L, for a discussion of Petty’s actions, Scottish Record Office, GD 406/1/9493, Feilding

to Hamilton, Venice, 5/15 December 1637, “I finde since to be his treating formerly with la Nave

to separate those two statues of brasse with a Ritratto of Corregio, or of Leonardo da Vince from

the collection promising to assist him in the selling thereof att as high a rate, as if they should be

added on to itt, in case he might buy those laid aside att a low rate, or as I rather beleive have

them in recompense”

132

The list of works sent to London at the start of negotiations numbered two

hundred and twenty-four, though it is unclear if they were all taken.108

Included were

some of the greatest masterpieces of Venetian art: the Three Philosophers by Giorgione

(fig. 103), the Young Woman holding a Mirror by Giovanni Bellini (fig. 104), and

Tintoretto’s Susanna and the Elders (fig. 105); all now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum

in Vienna.109

Della Nave (1571/9—1632) (fig. 106) had started collecting by 1608, having

acquired several items from the collection of the sculptor Alessandro Vittoria after his

death that same year.110

In his L’Idea dell’Architettura Universale (1615) Vincenzo

Scamozzi briefly mentions that he purchased works from Cardinal Pietro Bembo

including ‘20 di Tiziano rari.’ The painter Simon Vouet mentions his request to view the

della Nave collection in a letter to Ferranta Carlo, dated 14 August 1627, and Ridolfi

108

E.K. Waterhouse, “Paintings from Venice for Seventeenth Century England: Some Records of

a Forgotten Transaction,” Italian Studies, 7, (1952), pp. 14-21 for the inventory sent to Hamilton.

Also, Simona Savini Branca, Il Collezionismo Veneziano nel’600, (Padua: CEDAM, 1965), pp.

251-254 for the della Nave collection.

109

The Kunsthistorisches inventory collection numbers are: Giorgione, Inv.-Nr. GG-111, Bellini,

Inv.-Nr. GG-97, Tintoretto, Inv.-Nr. GG-1530. The provenance records of the Kunst indicated

that the Giorgione and bellini entered the collection from the collection of Leopold Wilhelm

(1659) by way of Hamilton (1638-1649). The Tintoretto however, seems to have passed into the

museum in 1712 from Giovanni Roetta who had it 1677 from Nicolo Renieri as reported by

Ridolfi (1648).

110

Carlo Ridolfi, Le Maraviglie dell’Arte, (Milan: Arnoldo Forni Editore, 2002), vol.1, p. 328.

Other sources for information on della Nave can be found in E.A. Cicogna, Delle inscrizioni

veneziane, (Venezia: Presso Givseppe Orlandelli, 1824-53), VI, p. 33 and Giovanni Gaetano

Bottari, Raccolta di lettere sulla pittura, scultura ed architettura, (Rome: Per gli Eredi

Barbiellini, 1754), I, p. 232.

133

attests to della Nave’s friendship with Palma il Giovane111

A merchant of silk, spices,

and various drugs, the family was originally from Bergamo; his great-grandfather had

arrive in Venice by the late 1480s. Married into a Venetian family, his great-grandfather

was able to obtain cittadinanza, or citizenship status. After settling his father’s numerous

debts—hence the sale of the collection— Bartolomeo della Nave’s own heir, Zuanne

della Nave, eventually bought his way into the Venetian aristocracy in 1653.112

At the same time that he was bidding for the della Nave collection, Feilding was

also in competition—again with Petty—for the Procurator Priuli collection. Michiel

Priuli was a reluctant vendor; it was one thing for a citizen to sell their paintings, it was

quite another for a noble to do the same. The Procurator probably found himself buffeted

by the continued disintegration of the Venetian commercial base, which would only

become worse as the years progressed.113

However, the economic misfortune of

Venetian families was to the benefit of eager collectors. Although Feilding would walk

away from both sales as the overall winner, Petty managed to snap up choice works on

111

Vincenzo Scamozzi, Idea dell'architettura universal, (Venetiis: Per Giorgio Valentino, 1615),

I, p. 306 references Bembo; E.K. Waterhouse, “Paintings from Venice for Seventeenth Century

England: Some Records of a Forgotten Transaction,” Italian Studies, 7, (1952), p. 5; Carlo

Ridolfi, Le Maraviglie dell’Arte, (Milan: Arnoldo Forni Editore, 2002), vol 2, p. 426.

112

For the fullest biography of della Nave with archival evidence see Stefania Mason and Linda

Borean, Il collezionismo d’arte a Venezia. Il Seicento, (Venice: Marsilio, 2007), pp. 258-261. As

mentioned earlier, the Libro d’Oro, or golden book of the Venetian aristocracy was

controversially re-opened during the Cretan War in order to raise funds. The male line of the

della Nave went extinct with Zuanne’s son Bernardo. Through Elena, the daughter of Zuanne’s

second son Piero, the feminine line continued; she married in to the Querini family in 1678. It

would be slightly ironic, yet somehow fitting if Zuanne used a portion of the funds he received

from a foreign nobleman to buy his way into the rolls of his own Venetian nobility.

113

Domenico Sella, "The Rise and Fall of the Venetian Woolen Industry," Crisis and Change in

the Venetian Economy in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, ed. Brian Pullan, (London:

Methuen, 1968), pp. 106-126.

134

behalf of Arundel. From della Nave, a portrait thought to be by Corregio and two

bronzes; and from Priuli, one of Titian’s last great works, The Flaying of Marsyas (fig.

107).

In the end, Feilding would return to London in 1639 after five years in Venice.

After all of his efforts for Hamilton he was rewarded the lowly rank of Gentleman of the

Prince’s Bedchamber, and was not to advance any further at court. In 1643, while

Hamilton was being elevated to a dukedom, the title of Earl of Denbigh came to him. He

eventually sided with the Parliamentarians against Charles I. Under the Commonwealth

he would become a member of the Council of State, and he would live to see the

Restoration of Charles II, in whose bedchamber he had served.

Hamilton and Feilding found themselves on opposing sides of the Civil War;

metaphorically similar to how they found themselves on opposing sides of life. Hamilton

was from an ancient noble line; he had money and eventual success as a courtier, he was

staid and traditional in his tastes. Feilding was a made-man; he owed his title to the

unscrupulousness and nepotism of his uncle, he did not advance socially, and he looked

to the modern, both in art and government. They were tied together by an unwanted

marriage, and the tone of Feilding’s letters always displays a slightly apologetic

undertone, as though through his efforts of acquisition he might repair the relationship.

The collection they had dedicated themselves to building numbered close to six hundred

items in the end, and though it had only taken them a few years to create such a vast

135

collection, it would be dispersed in just a fraction of that time.114

The Hamilton

collection would be the first of many to be confiscated and sold by the Commonwealth,

and Feilding was present when, on 9 March 1649, for his support of the king, James, the

3rd

Earl and 1st Duke of Hamilton was executed by decapitation in front of the tumultuous

crowd. One has to wonder what Feilding felt worse about; the loss of the art, or the loss

of his brother-in-law’s head.

114

Klara Garas, "Die Entstehung der Galerie des Erzherzogs Leopold Wilhelm," Jahrbuch der

kunsthistorischen Sammlungen in Wien, 63, (1967), p. 69-75 for the inventory of 1643.

136

7. Endgame: The English Collections Dispersed

Nobles fleeing from the troubles and the Commonwealth Sale of 1649 dispersed

the collections that had been built by the Whitehall group. Those who could leave for the

Continent did so with their possessions, while others had their paintings sent to them

once they had settled abroad. Many of these collections were so large it was impossible

to take everything.

Buckingham’s son sent some of his inherited works to the Netherlands, but they

were soon pawned off to support his family and it is not known how he got them out of

the country. The best of Hamilton’s collection, about a third of the six hundred paintings,

were taken by his brother William, the Earl of Lanark, when he fled in February of

1649.115

Both of those collections were bought by Archduke Leopold Wilhelm.116

Arundel had left England for good in February 1642 in the company of the queen

and her children. He sent sixty cases of his belongings to Antwerp, where he and Lady

Arundel went initially before she finally settled in Amsterdam. What remained in

England was taken by the Parliamentarians. Arundel returned to Italy, alone, in 1645 and

died in Padua. Lady Arundel lived until 1654, selling off parts of their collection

piecemeal to pay for support of the Royalist army and personal expenses, but when she

died her youngest son suddenly found himself in possession of almost six hundred

115

Jonathan Brown, Kings and Connoisseurs, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), p.

60.

116

Klara Garas, "Die Entstehung der Galerie des Erzherzogs Leopold Wilhelm," Jahrbuch der

kunsthistorischen Sammlungen in Wien, 63, (1967), pp. 39-80.

137

paintings—which he immediately began to sell.117

The dispersal of the Arundel

collection is the most difficult to trace because it occurred over a longer period of time;

Lady Arundel was living off the income sales of individual pieces generated, and when

she died she left no will. Her estate was disputed by her son and his nephew, but one was

in England while the other was in the Netherlands and it is difficult to know the

remaining works they each had. The ambassador of Spain, Alonso de Cárdenas, saw his

opportunity and purchased twenty-six paintings, all Venetian, from the group in

Amsterdam. Although we have his list, very few can be identified.118

Everhard Jabach

and his nephews, Frans and Berhard von Imstenraedt also purchased pictures; Titian’s

Concert Champêtre was bought by Jabach in Utrecht in 1662, and then he flipped it and

sold it to Louis XIV in 1671 (fig. 108).119

His nephews had less luck trying to make a

resale on their Arundel pictures; they finally sold low to Carl von Liechtenstein, bishop

of Olmütz, who took the Flaying of Marsyas.

The misfortune of these early English collectors is the wealth of today’s major

European museums, and through their guardianship, our own fortune. Each of these men,

and lady, delved into the Venetian market to form a dazzling display in the galleries of

117

See Lionel Cust and Mary Cox, “Notes on the Collections Formed by Thomas Howard, Earl of

Arundel and Surrey,” The Burlington Magazine, 19, (1911), pp. 278-286, 323-325 and F.H.C.

Weijtens, De Arundel-Collectie. Commencement de la Fin, Amersfoort, 1655, (Utrecht:

Rijksarchief, 1971).

118

Jonathan Brown, Kings and Connoisseurs, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), p.

62, notes 15 and 16.

119

F. Grossman, “Notes on the Arundel and Imstenraedt Collections,” The Burlington Magazine,

84, (1944), pp, 151-155, 173-176.

138

Whitehall.120

Their motives of personal gain and advancement may not have been the

purest, but their recognition of the aesthetic and intrinsic value of their purchases cannot

be denied. As much as they had a passion for the arts, the purchase of pictures was a

sound financial investment.

Through the subsequent sales and changes of ownership that would form the

provenance of these paintings, the knowledge, significance and awareness of the

Venetian visual model grew exponentially. Until the arrival of the dogged English to her

islands, the myth of Venice was only described in words and only visually expressed to

those in the corridors of her palazzos and government antechambers. Now suddenly at the

midpoint of the seventeenth century, it had been dispersed out into the world.

120

The sale of paintings owned by King Charles is an expansive subject. For the purpose of

focusing exclusively on buyers and their agents with direct access to Venice, he has been omitted

here. He relied on the individuals discussed in this chapter to either make arrangements for him,

gift him with a work or simply to absorb what he wanted into his own collection. He was hands

off in this regard, and it can be assumed he felt that all the pictures in Whitehall belonged to him

on some level. See note 15, this chapter, for scholarship on his collection and its sale.

139

CHAPTER 4: Complementary Activities: Marco Boschini, Paolo del Sera and Their

Associates as Merchants, Critics, Collectors and Painters1

On the Ryalto every Night at Twelve

I take my Evenings walk of Meditation,

There we two will meet, and talk of pretious

Mischief. 2

In a letter to Cardinal Leopoldo de’Medici, dated 7 September 1675, the art dealer

and critic Marco Boschini recounts his arrival at the home of Signor Guasconi

accompanied by his associate and friend, the painter Pietro della Vecchia. They had gone

to view two portraits that were of interest to the Cardinal.3 Like della Vecchia, Guasconi

was a business associate of Boschini, and his home was often used as a venue to view

1 Portions of this chapter are published by the author, Taryn Marie Zarrillo, “Complementary

Activities: Boschini, del Sera and Renieri as Merchants, Collectors and Painters in Seicento

Venice” in Merchants as Collectors, ed. Christina Anderson, (Surrey: Ashgate, 2015).



3 The letters are reprinted in Michelangelo Muraro, “Studiosi, Collezionisti. E opera d’arte venta

dalle lettere al Cardinale Leopoldo de’Medici,” Saggi e Memorie di Storia dell’Arte, IV, (1965),

pp. 65-83; Lucia e Ugo Procacci, “Il Carteggio di Marco Boschini con il Cardinale Leopoldo

de’Medici,” Saggi e Memorie di Storia dell’Arte, IV, (1965), specifically letters XLIII, XLIV and

XLV. Cardinal Leopoldo de’Medici (1617-1675) was the brother of Grand Duke Ferdinando II

and son of Cosimo II. A disciple of Galileo, Leopoldo founded the Accademia Platonica and the

Accademia del Cimento to promote the observation of nature through the Galilean method.

Intensely interested in science he experimented with telescopic lenses and all manner of scientific

instruments, and commissioned thermometers, astrolabes, calorimeters, quadrants, hygrometers

and other mechanical devices. A collector of rare books, paintings, drawings, sculpture, coins and

self-portraits, his collection is the basis of the Palazzo Pitti collections today. He carried on

correspondence with leading artists and collectors of the day, including Christiaan Huygens in the

Netherlands. In 1667 he was elevated to Cardinal by Pope Clement IX; his frequent trips to Rome

continued to fuel his artistic interests. By the time of his death in 1675 he owned over 700

paintings. His initial agent in Venice was Paolo del Sera; upon his death, the role was assumed by

Marco Boschini . For 1675 inventory and related documents see http://www.memofonte.it/

ricerche/ cardinal-leopoldo-de-medici.html, an invaluable online resource.

http://www.memofonte.it/

140

pictures.4 Of the two paintings, one was purported to be by the hand of Giorgione, while

the other was reported to be by Marietta Tintoretto (Fig. 109).5 In his letter to the

Cardinal, Boschini describes how upon seeing the Giorgione portrait, della Vecchia “lui

si pose a ridere e confesso che era di suo mano” (began to laugh and confessed it was by

his hand), saying that he had painted it thirty years earlier at the request of his father-in-

law Niccolo Renieri, a southern-Netherlandish painter and art dealer who had settled in

Venice.6 The transaction through which the painting left Renieri’s hands is unknown,

although the collector trying to sell the picture the day it was displayed in Guasconi’s

4Although Guasconi’s name appears several times in Boschini’s correspondence to Cardinal de’

Medici he does not reveal much information about the man or the level of their acquaintance

beyond business. The location of the house where their meetings were held is unfortunately not

mentioned. What is clear from correspondence is that Guasconi acted as a sort of “finder” of

pictures that were then cherry-picked by Boschini; he also seems to have made initial inquires

regarding the provenance of the pictures he presented—although in this particular case his home

only served as neutral ground. See Chapter 3 for further discussion, see note 6 this chapter.

5 Lucia e Ugo Procacci, “Il Carteggio di Marco Boschini con il Cardinale Leopoldo de’Medici,”

Saggi e Memorie di Storia dell’Arte, IV, (1965), pp. 107-108. Marietta Robusti (1560-1590), “La

Tintoretta,” was Jacopo Tintoretto’s eldest daughter. She was trained in painting by her father,

and along with her brother Domenico took a leading role in the workshop. She was married to

Mario Augusta, a jeweler and goldsmith and lived in the vicinity of her father’s home and shop in

the sestieri of Cannaregio in Venice. Considered an excellent portraitist by Ridolfi, few

autographed works have come down to us, and even by 1675 her works were highly prized.

Unfortunately Marietta died at the young age of thirty, and her loss was deeply felt by her father.

See Carlo Ridolfi, The Life of Tintoretto and his children Domenico and Marietta, trans. Robert

and Catherine Enggass, (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1984), pp. 97-99;

and Melania Mazzucco, Jacomo Tintoretto e i suoi figli. Storia di una famiglia veneziana, (Rome:

Rizzoli, 2009) for the most recent research on the Tintoretto family and the close relationship

between father and daughter.


Saggi e Memorie di Storia dell’Arte, IV, (1965), see letters XLIV, XLV. Ironically (as it would

turn out) it was de’Medici’s suggestion to Boschini to bring della Vecchia “per riconoscere la

qualità e conservazione di ciascheduno di essi quadri,” (letter IX) although they frequently

consulted together anyway regardless of his suggestion.

141

home was named Cavalier Fontana.7 In further correspondence dated the following

week in September, we find that the “Giorgione” was purchased regardless of its

authenticity, shipped to Florence and entered the collection of the Cardinal. In

subsequent letters dated through until the end of October 1675, Boschini is still

addressing the Cardinal’s confusion as to whether he received a painting by Giorgione or

by della Vecchia—for it appears he in fact wanted one of each. In a letter dated 5

October 1675, Boschini impatiently writes, “dico che il quadro inviato dal detto Vecchia,

è una delle cose che lui fa ad immitazione di Giorgione…” (I say that the painting sent is

by that [Pietro della] Vecchia, it is one of the things he did in imitation of Giorgione).8

Pietro della Vecchia was seventy-two years old in 1675; economically stable,

socially mobile, and reaping the rewards of an established career.9 When he was born in

1603 however, the artistic community he would eventually join was still struggling to

reinvent itself in the wake of the legacy left by their Cinquecento predecessors. The last

of the great masters, Jacopo Tintoretto, had died in 1594. The challenge laid out in


Saggi e Memorie di Storia dell’Arte, IV, (1965), specifically letters IX, X, XI, and document XV.

Cavalier Fontana appears to have come to Cardinal Leopoldo’s attention through his sister, by

way of the court in Parma, “Mi è stato fatto sapere dalla Ser.ma di Parma mia sorella come gl’era

stato scritto di costà e proposti alcuni quadri del Sig.r Cav.re Francesco Fontana…” (letter IX, p.

92) and then Boschini is directed to go and view the pictures. We can assume from the documents

that Fontana was from Parma and living in Venice, as his paintings were located there. It was

with a letter of introduction from de’Medici that Boschini was granted access and they were

viewed in Guasconi’s home.


Saggi e Memorie di Storia dell’Arte, IV, (1965), see letters XLVII-XLIX, and specifically

XLVIII for quotation cited.

9 Philip Sohm and Richard Spear, Painting for Profit, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010),

p. 227.

142

Chapter One—the need to reinterpret the Venetian visual tradition and the ability to

continue to retain the qualities that had distinguished it during the Cinquecento, had

fallen to the assistants and students who inherited the artistic legacy and the stock capital

from the botteghe of their masters.

143

1. Dealer, Critic, and Artist: tutto lo stesso

This chapter considers the business practices of and working relationships

between Marco Boschini (1602/05-1681), Paolo del Sera (1614-1672), and Niccolo

Renieri (Nicolas Régnier) (1588-1667) in Venice during the mid-to-late seventeenth

century. Of the three men, only Boschini was Venetian by birth. The others had settled

in the city by way of Florence and French Flanders, respectively.

Del Sera had arrived from Florence in 1632, with the purpose of establishing his

family’s commercial interests in the silk trade and remained until his death in 1672. By

July 1640, the date of his first letter to Cardinal Leopoldo de’Medici, he makes mention

of two portraits that already had been sent to Florence and their favourable reception by

the Cardinal. Whether he was already in service to the Medici household when he

arrived in Venice, or whether he became the Cardinal’s agent after his arrival, is

unknown. The correspondence between them however, would last for thirty years.10

Niccolo Renieri (fig. 110), in the Italianized version of his French-language name,

was born in Maubeuge-in-Hainault and trained as a painter in Antwerp. He spent several

years in Rome where he came under the influence of the followers of Caravaggio before

eventually settling in Venice around 1626. By the late 1630’s, Renieri had established

10

The correspondence between del Sera and de’Medici is unfortunately one-sided, as only del

Sera’s letters are available. They are detailed and meticulous however, and it is possible to infer

the requests and responses he received. For a detailed study of Paolo del Sera’s activities as

Cardinal de’Medici’s agent in Venice, see Edward Goldberg, Patterns in Late Medici Art

Patronage, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983), pp. 54-78. The del Sera letters

covering 7 July 1640 – 23 September 1672 are available in the Archivio di Stato di Firenze

(ASF), Carteggio dei Artisti, V, VI, VII, and are unpublished.

144

himself as an art dealer as well as a painter, attending to the collecting interests of the

then English Ambassador, Basil Feilding, who was, as we have seen, in turn acting on

behalf of his brother-in-law, the Marquess of Hamilton.11

Renieri further embedded

himself in the artistic community with the marriage in 1648 of his daughter, Lucrezia, to

another Flemish painter living in Venice, Daniel van den Dyck, and his second daughter,

Clorinda, to Pietro della Vecchia, the Venetian painter and his business associate,

mentioned above, in 1649.

Marco Boschini (fig. 111), the longest lived of the three, had studied painting with

Palma il Giovane but dealt in false pearls and pictures as his main source of income. He

is best known for his two books about Venetian painting, La Carta del Navegar Pitoresco

(1660) and Le Ricche Minere della Pittura Veneziana (1664/1674), in which he takes up

a history and commentary of Venetian painting and painters. Following the model of

Giorgio Vasari’s work on Florence, The Lives, and Carlo Ridolfi’s Venetian counterpart

published twenty years earlier, Boschini’s work was both guidebook and commentary.12

Brought to Cardinal de’Medici’s attention by del Sera on several occasions through

11

For a recent study of Renieri, see Annick Lemoine, Nicolas Régnier (alias Niccolò Renieri) ca.

1588-1667 peintre, collectionneur et marchand d'art, (Paris: Arthena, 2007); for biography see

Stefania Mason, Il Collezionismo d’arte a Venezia. Il Seicento, (Venezia: Marsilio, 2007), pp.

301-303. For his relationship with English collectors, see E.K. Waterhouse, “Paintings from

Venice for Seventeenth-Century England: Some Records of a Forgotten Transaction,” Italian

Studies, VII, (1952), pp.1-23.

12

For background on Boschini see Philip Sohm, Pittoresco: Marco Boschini, His Critics, and

Their Critiques of Painterly Brushwork in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Italy,

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991); Anna Pallucchini, “La Posizione Critica de

Marco Boschini,” Arte Veneta, 18, (1964), pp. 89-98; and Roberto Grazia, “Contributi

Boschiniani,” Studi Secenteschi, XVIII, (1977), pp. 207-245, which also provides extensive

bibliography (most by Italian scholars and too lengthy to list here) on Boschini in Note 1.

145

business dealings and personal association, Boschini would eventually take over as his

replacement in Venice as art agent for Cardinal de’Medici.13

Del Sera had been dead for three years by the time of the meeting at Guasconi’s

house, but he had known both Renieri and the painter della Vecchia well. He had

consulted with them independently of his acquaintance with Boschini, making mention of

both men’s expertise as well as problems of attribution with some of the works that

passed through their hands in his correspondence with the Cardinal. It is predominantly

through events documented in letters written to de’Medici, first by del Sera and then by

Boschini, that we have insight into their methods of conducting business and the level to

which they were connected socially.14

In the small community of artists, dealers and collectors in Venice, these three

men were bound by common interest; and by patron, competition, friendship and

sometimes marriage. When del Sera died, it was Boschini who made an inventory and

appraised the value of his remaining collection.15

In one of the many instances where

13

Del Sera’s first mention of Boschini to de’Medici seems to have occurred in the initial letter

written 7 July 1640; del Sera relates the purchase of simulated pearl necklaces (of which Boschini

was a merchant) and that the man in question was also familiar with paintings, “huomo intendente

di pittura e che attende a senserie di quadri…per profesessione mercante di perle false” see

Archivio di Stato di Firenze (ASF), Carteggio dei Artisti, V, 1, unpublished.

14

A selection of transcribed letters is available in: Michelangelo Muraro, “Studiosi, Collezionisti.

E opera d’arte veneta dalle lettere al Cardinale Leopoldo de’Medici,” Saggi e Memorie di Storia

dell’Arte, IV, (1965), pp. 65-83; Lucia e Ugo Procacci, “Il Carteggio di Marco Boschini con il

Cardinale Leopoldo de’Medici,” Saggi e Memorie di Storia dell’Arte, IV, (1965), pp. 85-114; for

a generalized overview of these relationships see Jennifer Fletcher, “Marco Boschini and Paolo

del Sera-Collectors and Connoisseurs of Venice,” Apollo, 110, (1979), pp. 416-424.

15

Lucia e Ugo Procacci, “Il Carteggio di Marco Boschini con il Cardinale Leopoldo de’Medici,”

Saggi e Memorie di Storia dell’Arte, IV, (1965), specifically letter XLII for Boschini’s role in the

appraisal.

146

camaraderie and consultation met, del Sera writes in a letter to de’Medici dated

November 1659, describing how “abbiamo questa settimana fatto la recognizione di

disegni (per illustrissimo) insieme con i pittori, Niccolo Renieri e Pietro Vecchia” (this

week I have identified the drawings [for your illustriousness] together with the painters

Niccolo Renieri and Pietro Vecchia). This was a positive meeting where a selection of

drawings intended for de’Medici was assigned solid attribution through their group

consultation.16

Boschini conducted his business in a similar manner to del Sera, consulting with

della Vecchia and often competing with Renieri for clients. Once paintings or drawings

that could be of interest to a buyer were located, authorship was assigned to the work;

either thorough historical knowledge of the purchase from the seller and his family (not

always reliable or true), or through the connoisseurship abilities of dealers like del Sera,

Boschini and Renieri. If they felt unable to make a solid attribution they had no

hesitation asking for assistance from their associates, as the 1659 letter illustrates. In a

city such as Venice, with such an overwhelming wealth of art to be bought, sold, traded

and commissioned, the search for the next great find began at the street level. Almost

anyone could be found to sell from their collection, whether it was an impoverished

parish priest looking to unload an altarpiece, a noble family selling due to financial need

or simple disinterest, or leftover stock from the studio of a deceased artist. For these

dealers, their initial order of business was to cull the quality works on offer from the junk

and establish a selection for the buyer to which they could apply an attribution. Even if

16

Archivio di Stato di Firenze (ASF), Carteggio dei Artisti, V, 309, unpublished.

147

works of art in private hands were not yet on offer, knowing who was in possession of

certain pictures could prove beneficial in the future. For example, del Sera relates how

he attended an open viewing at the Palazzo Grimani Calergi wearing a mask to retain his

anonymity, but recognized the agent of the Earl of Arundel who was there as well.17

In the Venetian art market of the mid-seventeenth century, Boschini, del Sera, and

Renieri were powerful and well connected individuals, and their status was maintained

for the course of their mature careers as art dealers and occasional collectors. All three

played multiple roles: Renieri was an established painter who still accepted commissions

but made most of his money and a name for himself as a dealer. Del Sera was a merchant

who procured luxury items for the Medici court, but just happened to spend a large

amount of time buying paintings for himself and for the nobility as part of that role.18

As

native Venetians, Boschini and della Vecchia already knew the city’s painters and major

collectors who might be looking to sell—by virtue of birth they had entry into those

houses that were often closed to foreigners. Acting as agents and middlemen on behalf of

their illustrious patrons, keeping a ready eye out for any possible paintings entering the

market, and evaluating in consultation among themselves those paintings for sale: they

were an insular, self-promoting, and savvy group. All of them sold, or ‘found’ pictures

17

Personally, I would like to imagine that del Sera was wearing a traditional Venetian bauta

mask, but he doesn’t specify. Archivio di Stato di Firenze (ASF), Carteggio dei Artisti, V, 6, it

should be noted that this page is torn along one side, words are missing and del Sera does not

name the Arundel agent, unpublished.

18

Ridolfi mentions him several times, mostly to record that he is in possession of one painting or

another, but takes the time to describe del Sera as a, “Florentine gentleman of genteel custom who

has shown himself to be well versed in the art of painting.” Carlo Ridolfi, Le Meraviglie

dell’Arte, (Milan: Arnaldo Forni, 2002), v. 2, pp. 236.

148

for their patrons as primary income, all of them were trained in the art of painting, and all

of them were in possession of art works at any given time—sometimes for their own

enjoyment but typically for their obvious investment value.

Renieri and del Sera collected paintings for personal pleasure but also with the

express purpose of selling them off as a group.19

They were not simply merchants who

collected paintings, they were merchants of paintings. Paolo del Sera’s personal

collection—sold to Cardinal de’Medici in 1654 after a not-so-subtle hint that Queen

Christina of Sweden was interested in buying it—was of such importance that Boschini

spent eighty-three quatrains describing it in his Carta del Navegar Pitoresco.20

He then

promptly started collecting again, with the intention of making another sale, but died

before he had the opportunity. His 1654 sale to de’Medici forms what is today the core

of Venetian paintings in the Palazzo Pitti collection.21

19

See Simona Savini Branca, Il Collezionismo Veneziano nel’600, (Padua: CEDAM, 1965), pp.

264-268 and E.K. Waterhouse, “Paintings from Venice for Seventeenth Century England: Some

Records of a Forgotten Transaction,” Italian Studies, 7, (1952), pp. 21-23 for inventories of

Renieri’s collection. See Branca pp. 277-279 for del Sera’s collection and pp. 111-112 for two

wills by del Sera.

20

Archivio di Stato di Firenze (ASF), Carteggio dei Artisti, V, 64 and V, 75, unpublished, “Si

ritrova qui il Sig. David Bechs Olandese pittore della sua Regina di Svezia, venuto a posta in

Italia per comperar pitture, disegni e statue, et ha contratto meco grand’amicizia, havendomi

tastato se venderei il mio studio, che gl’e in estremo piaciuto, gl’ho risposto che non lo venderei il

mio studio se non me ne fussi fatto venir voglia con un offerta da Re, perche alli prezzi che puo

comperar un gentiluomo ordinario compero io, m’ha risposto che non ho detto male, e che ho

ragione, e che verra il tempo che mi potra replicare con piu fondamento per che al presente non

ha recapiti di danaro per somme grosse, ma che la Regina ha concetti grandi” 1 November 1653.

It is unclear whether Christina ever made a firm offer, but it is interesting to note that del Sera

gives the name of her own agent working on her behalf in Venice.

21

Works in del Sera’s collection included pictures by Titian, Veronese, Moroni, Paris Bordone,

Tintoretto, Salviati, Savoldo, Pordenone, Palma Vecchio, Andrea Schiavone and Strozzi. See

149

In 1665, two years prior to his death, Renieri obtained permission from the

Provveditori di Comune to hold a lottery for his painting collection the following year.22

The state would benefit from a 5% commission, and for the two-ducat price of a ticket,

the gambling public had a chance to win one of the 76 paintings on offer, each with an

average value of 237 ducats.23

The total value of the collection had been given at 18,000

ducats, although the total ticket sales only garnered 12,400 ducats.24

While the numbers

suggested Renieri was taking a loss, the best explanation is that he knew appraised values

were generally inflated over actual sale prices.25

Cardinal de’Medici expressed his interest in the lottery to del Sera, but del Sera’s

response was less than enthusiastic, stating plainly that the paintings were no good,

Boschini’s list in Marco Boschini, La Carta del Navegar Pitoresco, ed. Anna Pallucchini

(Venezia-Roma: Instituto per la Collaborazione Culturale, 1966), p. 395f.

22

The Provveditori di Comune was one of the many committees that comprised Venetian

government, composed of magistrates who (among many tasks) approved or denied particular

activities to take place. Since a lottery of this type was unusual, Renieri needed to obtain special

permission for it. The Provveditori were appointed by the Senate and reported directly back to

that legislative body. Interestingly, the Provveditori di Comune was initially responsible (1173)

for the administration of the wool guild. For a fuller explanation of the complexities of Venetian

government and her administrative bodies, see Elisabeth Crouzat-Pavan, Venice Triumphant: The

Horizons of a Myth, (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002), pp. 195-228.

23

Simona Savini Branca, Il Collezionismo Veneziano nel ‘600, (Padova: CEDAM, 1965), pp. 56-

59, and 93-107 for the documents and letters to the Provveditori.

24

Assigning value in today’s market for the ducat is tricky. See Philip Sohm, Painting for Profit,

(New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), pp. 205-209 for price graphs of food and material

objects in 17th

century Venice. Further, it is not stipulated whether the lottery was held in silver

ducats (typical currency) or gold. Assuming (unscientifically) the value of a gold ducat at $4.50,

that would make ticket sales worth $55,800—this is only to provide a sense of relative value in

today’s market.

25

A small number of Renieri’s paintings came from the collection of Gabriele Vendramin; see

Jaynie Anderson, “A Further Inventory of Gabriel Vendramin’s Collection,” The Burlington

Magazine, 121, (1979), pp. 639-648.

150

referring to many of them as faragine — which translates roughly to ‘muddled’.26

The

fact that del Sera calls attention to Renieri in a negative manner allows us to question

their relationship. Was del Sera jealously guarding his patron’s attention, not wanting

him to buy from anyone else? Or was he simply familiar with Renieri’s habit of

commissioning his son-in-law Pietro della Vecchia to paint copies (as he did with the

Giorgione discussed at the beginning of this chapter) and was looking out for the

cardinal’s best interests? From the attitude of his letters, it would appear to be a bit of

both.

Boschini, though spending the majority of his time writing about other people’s

painting collections in Venice, did not appear ever to have had his own. The tone of his

correspondence with the Cardinal takes a different cast than del Sera’s: gone are the easy

conversational manners and everyday anecdotes interspersed within discussions

regarding art. Instead, Boschini utilises a succinct business manner. With the publication

of his Carta del Navegar and Ricche Minere in 1660 and 1674, Boschini had established

himself as the champion of Venetian art. As such, he condemned the practice of

exporting pictures, which he considered a cultural loss to Venice. As a dealer, however,

he consistently engaged in their sale for his livelihood.27

Furthermore, as in the case

illustrated by his afternoon in the house of Guasconi, there was a relatively large amount

26

Faragine is defined as a mess or hodgepodge. Archivio di Stato di Firenze (ASF), Carteggio

dei Artisti, VI, 395, and VI, 476, unpublished. For Renieri’s collection and lottery see Simona

Savini Branca, Il Collezionismo Veneziano nel ‘600, (Padova: Casa Editrice Leo S. Olschki,

1965), chapter 4, and documents 1-5, pp. 93-96.

27

Marco Boschini, La carta del navegar pitoresco, ed. Anna Pallucchini, (Venezia-Roma: Istituto

per la Collaborazione Culturale, 1966), pp. 22-24.

151

of confusion during the seventeenth century among collectors regarding authorship of

pictures as being by a master, his studio assistants, or copies by a follower.28

By the time of the meeting with Guasconi in September 1675, Boschini probably

had fond memories of earlier decades when paintings by Renaissance masters up for sale

were plentiful and the Venetian State had not yet entered into a conservationist mood. A

dramatic shift had occurred in the mid 1600’s, with the Arte dei Depentori, or Venetian

Painter’s Guild taking a vested and active interest in the fate of their forbears’

production—specifically that of the Cinquecento masters.29

The decision, for example,

not to sell the contents of the church of Santo Spirito in Isola, located in the Venetian

lagoon, which included the Sacrifice of Isaac, Cain and Abel, and David and Goliath by

Titian (figs. 4-6), and instead to remove all artworks to the newly completed church of

Santa Maria della Salute, was an important step in the awareness of the physical, and not

simply ideological, artistic patrimony in Venice and its potential loss.30

The literal

28

As we have seen with the cases illustrated in Chapter 2, this issue is often unclear. Additional

helpful reading on this concept can be found in Studies in the History of Art, ed. Kathleen

Preciado, Retaining the Original. Multiple Originals, Copies, and Reproductions, with essays by

Beverly Louise Brown, “Replication and the Art of Veronese,” pp. 111-124; Jeffrey Muller,

“Measures of Authenticity: The Detection of Copies in the Early Literature on Connoisseurship,”

pp. 141-149; and Richard Spear, “Notes on Renaissance and Baroque Originals and

Originality,”pp. 97-99, (Hanover, 1989). For an intense scientific discussion of the subject, see

Gianfranco Mossetto and Marilena Vecco, eds., The Economics of Copying and Counterfeiting,

(Milan: FrancoAngeli, 2004).

29

For a history of the painter’s guild in Venice and list of further reading see Valentina Moncada,

“The Painter’s Guilds in the Cities of Venice and Padua,” RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics, 15,

(1988), pp. 105-121.

30

For the history of Santo Spirito in Isola, the fate of its church and the monastic residents of the

lagoon island, see Flaminio Corner (1693-1778), Notizie Storiche delle Chiese e Monasteri di

Venezia e di Torcello, (Venezia, 1758), pp. 492-497. For the history and building of Santa Maria

della Salute, see Flaminio Corner, Ecclesiae venetae antiquis monumentis nunc primum editis

152

glorification and attendant reverence of Venetian art, achieved through public

commissions and display, especially of art of the Cinquecento, was in and of itself a form

of glorification of the Venetian State and all it represented.31

In other words, even in

Boschini’s time it was understood that what made Venice special—what made the city

unique and defined it in a way no other city could be—was the art that it produced.

Painting of the Venetian High Renaissance, of the Cinquecento, was considered the

epitome of this expression.32

Therefore, the desire to own examples by Cinquecento masters—Titian,

Tintoretto, Veronese, and Giorgione, for example—meant works by these artists were at

the top of any serious collector’s list. Those dealers who were able to provide these

coveted paintings for sale found they could not only make a tidy profit but also steadily

increase their social standing through the favours granted by their happy patrons.33

The

illustratae ac in decades distributae, 18 vols, (Venezia, 1749), 7, pp. 1-79; Andrew Hopkins,

“Plans and Planning for Santa Maria della Salute, Venice,” The Art Bulletin, 79, (1997), pp. 440-

465, and Andrew Hopkins, “Longhena’s Second Sanctuary Design for Santa Maria della Salute,”

The Burlington Magazine, 136, (1994), pp. 498-501. Rudolf Wittkower, “S. Maria della Salute:

Sceneographic Architecture and the Venetian Baroque,” Journal of the Society of Architectural

Historians, 16, (1957), pp. 3-10 is a useful and seminal contribution on the interior and exterior

architectural vocabulary; for plague churches and their role in Venetian civic ritual see Rona

Goffen, Piety and Patronage in Renaissance Venice, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986);

Edward Muir, Civic Ritual in Renaissance Venice, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981).

31

Robert and Catherine Enggass, Life of Tintoretto, (University Park: Pennsylvania State

University Press, 1984), p. 8.

32

See David Rosand, Myths of Venice: The Figuration of a State, (Chapel Hill: University of

North Carolina Press, 2001) for the most comprehensive explanation of this idea.

33

Edward Goldberg, Patterns in Late Medici Art Patronage, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University

Press, 1983); Philip Sohm and Richard Spear, Painting for Profit, (New Haven: Yale University

Press, 2010), pp. 205-252.

153

extant number of such paintings meant that the possibility of owning one was relatively

slim, while even finding one for possible sale could be a daunting task, especially from

afar. What the potential collector really needed was an agent working on their behalf in

the city itself; someone to make discrete inquires and inspect the painting in person,

someone who could be trusted to act as proxy and make needed arrangements. This is

the need that Boschini, del Sera and Renieri answered.

More often than not it was to the workshop and studios of contemporary Seicento

artists that agents and merchants would turn when looking to fill a request. A picture that

could be associated with the style of a Cinquecento master was always readily available

from the students and assistants who had opened their own shops and were working in

the style that they had been taught. It was already common practice to accept that

paintings that came out of the master’s workshop were considered to be by the master;

meaning that they had his stamp of approval as being up to par with his own standard of

quality even if he hadn’t touched them himself.34

More savvy buyers who could afford

the price and knew enough to demand a certain level of attention from the master

expected that he would paint the face and hands in a portrait, for example, but an assistant

would paint the clothing and background. Most buyers were either oblivious or simply

didn’t care, as long as the initial design and organization had been developed by the head

of the studio.35

Assistants and students who had inherited their master’s stylistic legacy

34

The best introductory discussion of this issue remains Hans Tietze, “Master and Workshop in

the Venetian Renaissance,” Parnassus, 11, (1939), pp. 34-35+45.

35

A good example of this is Titian’s Venus with a Musician, of which there are at least six

versions: two in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, two in the Prado, one in Berlin, and one in the

154

could still claim a legitimate association, and by virtue of “the style is the master” could

provide canvasses for sale. The challenge for connoisseurs like Boschini and del Sera

occurred when the painting had already changed hands several times before coming to

them, and they were in a position to sort out whether a painting had been made by an

assistant during the master’s lifetime, or had been made to mimic the master after his

death. This is when their visual memory and the ability to recognize and tease apart

separate individual hands within a work became critical to their business.

While buying art often provided a thrill for collectors, the need to sell it—usually

precipitated by the steady economic downturn the Republic faced in the 17th

century, bad

investments, and the worsening financial straits many Venetian nobles found themselves

in—was cause for embarrassment.36

Additionally, if patricians should find themselves

needing to sell, doing so within the confines of Venetian social structures, polite niceties,

Cambridge Fitzwilliam Museum. Titian developed the design for the composition and probably

worked on several of them, but he did not complete them or do the majority of work. See

catalogue entries for the works, accessible from each museum’s website. Published discussion is

extensive: most recently, Andrea Bayer, Art and Love in Renaissance Italy. Exh. cat., The

Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2008, pp. 327–29 and Frederick Ilchman, Titian,

Tintoretto, Veronese: Rivals in Renaissance Venice. Exh. cat., Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Boston, 2009, and Miguel Falomir, Titian: Danaë, Venus and Adonis. The Early Poesie. Exh.

cat., Museo Nacional del Prado, 2014. Nonetheless, these paintings were considered by their

owners to be by Titian and accepted as such.

36

For the shift in commercial practice see Domenico Sella, “Crisis and Change in Venetian

Trade,” in Brian Pullan, ed., Crisis and Change in the Venetian Economy in the Sixteenth and

Seventeenth Centuries, (London: Metheun & Co, 1968), pp. 88-105; for unkind commentary

regarding selling pictures, Paul Shakeshaft, “To Much Bewiched with Thoes Intysing Things:’

The letters of James, Third Marquis of Hamilton and Basil, Viscount Feilding, concerning

collecting in Venice 1635-1639,” Burlington Magazine, 128, (1986), p. 131, no. 59, “good old

Procurator Priuli, who lately sold your lordship the St. Margaret of Raphael, entangling his foote

in his gowne, fell downe a paire of staires, and is since dead; which has moved the Broglio

[scheming crowd] at St Marks to say that it was impossible he should live, after he parted with his

sainte...”

155

and rigorous State watchfulness was not something that could be advertised openly even

if everyone was aware of arrangements being made. The Venetian patriarchy, ever

mindful of political and social persecution, was a cautious but willing participant. Del

Sera’s letters to de’Medici are full of gossipy tidbits that relate information not just about

the artwork for sale, but often the reason (frequently scandalous) that the work of art

came to be on the market.37

The Grimani Calergi family, for example, had mismanaged

their financial affairs so terribly they were pleased to receive just one thousand ducats for

their Christ and the Centurion by Veronese (fig. 112), so that they could provide a dowry

for their sister.38

Further difficulties were raised by the restrictive socializing of Venetian noble

families. Any foreigner (in other words, any non-Venetian) was kept at a distance, and

certainly not permitted open access to their homes. To do so would invite accusations of

foreign bribery and espionage.39

Hence, the need for an individual who could work with

37

Michelangelo Muraro, “Studiosi, collezionisti e opera d’arte veneta dalle lettere al Cardinale

Leopoldo de’Medici,” Saggi e Memorie di Storia dell’Arte, IV, (1965), pp. 65-83; Lucia e Ugo

Procacci, “Il Carteggio di Marco Boschini con il Cardinale Leopoldo de’Medici,” Saggi e

Memorie di Storia dell’Arte, IV, (1965), pp. 85-114.

38

As a comparison to this price, del Sera also relates that the Servi monks were holding out for

10,000 ducats for their Feast in the House of Simon by Veronese. The point here being that

Venetian families in need of cash were willing to sell low. See Archivio di Stato di Firenze

(ASF), Carteggio dei Artisti, V, 5 and 214, unpublished. However, the sale of the Servi painting

was ultimately not to take place, as the State intervened and gave it to Louis XIV of France in

1664—a move where diplomatic relations took precedence over artistic patrimony.

39

The labyrinth of Venetian politics and the fallout from this type of involvement can be found in

the case of Antonio Foscarini, a Venetian nobleman and the Countess of Arundel, wife of the

famous art collector Lord Arundel while they were living in Venice. Charged as co-conspirators

assisting in a Spanish plot to overthrow the Venetian government, Countess Arundel was later

exonerated, but Antonio Foscarini was put to death. See Jonathan Walker, “Antonio Foscarini in

the City of Crossed Swords,” Rethinking History, 5:2, (2001), pp. 305-334.

156

the staff of the household, take care of all the details, including getting the painting out of

the city and past customs officials, or simply moving it from one house to another across

town. It’s important to keep in mind here that any of our three gentlemen could be acting

on behalf of the buyer or the seller, or vice versa. Although they consulted among

themselves, that does not mean they did not often wind up on opposing sides of the

negotiation. As we have seen, del Sera accepted the assistance of Renieri for an

attribution, but later warned against the quality of his collection, while Boschini moved

pictures to the home of his associate Guasconi only to discover he was buying a copy that

had been commissioned by Renieri.

How did all of this work practically? Instructions and stipulations would be given

by the family to a household steward or secretary, who would then make contact with

Boschini, Renieri or del Sera, and pass on any requirements and the financial goals to be

met by the sale. The items in question would then be removed from the household and

taken to an agreed-upon location where they could be examined thoroughly along with

any associates they wished to consult. Potential buyers would then be contacted; a

detailed description of the work in question given, a price named, and negotiations would

begin. When dealing at this level, the sensali or art dealers, acted more as facilitators for

a process with an already predetermined outcome—the expected sale of the picture.

Money from the sale would not be handled; they would simply perform the abhorrent

task of wrangling the price; favourable to the 5% commission discretely taken for

157

themselves.40

The shipment of the work would then be arranged once an agreement had

been reached.

The knowledge and skills of individuals like Boschini, del Sera, and Renieri

therefore became indispensible to buyers who were located outside of Venice, along with

those newly arrived in the city seeking expertise. In the cases of Boschini and del Sera,

who both eventually found service with the same patron; Cardinal Leopoldo de’ Medici,

we know that Del Sera mentions Boschini in many of his letters, referring to him as ‘a

very dear friend’, and sent a copy of the Carta to Florence. Eventually it would be

Boschini who took over the role as de’Medici’s agent in Venice after the death of del

Sera in 1672.41

However, while del Sera cultivated friends and contacts within the

Venetian art community, de’Medici was his only patron. Boschini on the other hand

knew almost every painter in Venice and maintained business relations with as many

clients as he could; acting on behalf of not just the Medici, but the Gonzaga, Este and

Hapsburgs as well. While the business of paintings was a pastime for del Sera, for

Boschini it was a livelihood.42

40

Del Sera mentions the standard 5% senseria paid by the buyer of a Veronese, Archivio di Stato

di Firenze (ASF), Carteggio dei Artisti, V, 216, unpublished. Unless they were selling a work in

their own possession (and thus required direct payment), neither del Sera nor Boschini make

mention of transfer of funds in their correspondence. This leads me to believe, at least in the case

of de’Medici, that his secretary was probably involved in the payment process to the seller. All

del Sera and Boschini needed to do was be sure that de’Medici wanted to purchase the painting.

41

Gloria Chiarini de Anna, “Nove Lettere di Paolo del Sera a Leopoldo de’Medici,” Paragone,

307, (1975), pp. 87-99.

42

Del Sera can be very liberal in his correspondence, for example, he expends a lot of ink

describing to the cardinal his attempts at ousting two whores who had taken to plying their trade

in front of his house, but he at least mentions that he lives “sul Canal Grande e dirimpetto a

158

While his social position may not have been as genteel as del Sera’s, whose

distinguished family was well-established among the Florentine mercantile nobility,

Boschini, in his letters to de’Medici, is careful never to overstep himself and ask for too

many favours (a flaw of del Sera’s which in his correspondence often descends into a

rather whiny pleading regarding the lack of good wine or his families problems in Venice

and Florence).43

Boschini, moreover, consistently makes sure to angle the situation to his

best advantage, usually with another potential sale in the works; his letters de’Medici

look to possible future acquisitions and works on the market.44

. As the business of

dealing in art developed, the parameters of new social boundaries had to be created

between picture dealer and patron.

Del Sera represented a traditional role stemming from a courtly appointment that

was typically found outside of Venice. He was a merchant of goods other than

paintings—but he spent a large amount of time acting as a “finder” for de’Medici—

buying works with an eye toward the Cardinal’s likes and dislikes.45

From his letters in

Rialto, su la piazza di Santa Sofia” Archivio di Stato di Firenze (ASF), Carteggio dei Artisti, VI,

441, unpublished.

43

Paolo del Sera’s father was a Florentine senator, occupying an important role in the Granducal

household. Little is known about Boschini’s extended family, but he seems to have come from

the Venetian citizen class. See Edward Goldberg, Patterns in Late Medici Art Patronage,

(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983), pp. 58-60; Lino Moretti, “Marco Boschini:

‘compendiosa informazione,” Ricche Minere, 1, (2014), pp. 7-19.

44

Michelangelo Muraro, “Studiosi, collezionisti e opere d'arte veneta dalle lettere al Cardinale

Leopoldo de’Medici,” Saggi e Memorie di Storia dell’Arte, IV, (1965), pp. 65-83.

45

Del Sera dealt in luxury goods for the nobility: beaver hats, lace collars, jewelry, books and

glassware, were purchased as a sort of 17th century mail order for the Medici, their relations and

anyone else willing to pay. See Edward Goldberg, Patterns in Late Medici Art Patronage,

(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983), p. 59.

159

the Florence Archive, it is clear that del Sera purchased paintings knowing he could sell

them forward; if not immediately individually then as a group in the future. He bought

paintings because he personally enjoyed collecting them, but if he could make a profit on

them then he did not hesitate to do so.46

Regarding another Tintoretto picture, on 2

December 1656 he writes to de’Medici, “I assure your Highness that if I didn’t have such

a great need of cash for my business, I should wish to buy it as an investment.”47

Boschini and Renieri acted as free agents unlike del Sera, who was part of

Cardinal de’Medici’s household and filled a nebulous role as “agent abroad.” He was

free to conduct his own business in Venice as a merchant of luxury goods, but through

the relationship he cultivated and established with Cardinal de’Medici in the end he

exclusively sourced pictures for the Cardinal.48

The sensali, or art dealers, lived on their

income of sales alone.49

Obviously maintaining good relations among all involved

parties buying and selling was imperative; at the very least it could lead to additional

patrons, but sensali also had the option of offering a work to more than one collector at a

46

Edward Goldberg, Patterns in Late Medici Art Patronage, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University

Press, 1983), p. 54.

47

Archivio di Stato di Firenze (ASF), Carteggio dei Artisti, V, 179, unpublished, “Posso dire

all’AV, confermandole che se non fusse che io ho troppo bisognio de danari per il mio negozio,

vorrei comperarlo per incetta.”

48

Del Sera may have claimed he had other potential buyers in order to help de’Medici come to a

purchase decision, but his letters do not reveal that he ever actually sold a painting to anyone else.

49

Simona Savini Branca, Il Collezionismo Veneziano nel ‘600, (Padua: CEDAM, 1965), pp. 47-

59.

160

time. If a patron began to drag out the sale or suddenly backed out, they could always try

to find another buyer.

By 1629 Boschini and his family had settled in a house owned by the Scuola di

San Rocco in the Calle Figher near San Marcuola, listing his occupation not as

‘merchant’ (which he never officially referred to himself as) but as ‘painter’ on the

contract.50

Considering that his associates refer to him as a merchant—del Sera describes

him as a merchant of false pearls and glass in his first letter to the Cardinal—it is

interesting that he makes this distinction. Indeed, Boschini had studied briefly with

Palma il Giovane, and like Renieri, he was also inscribed in the Confraternità dei Pittori

as a painter, miniaturist, and printmaker. Only two paintings by his hand are known:

Entry of Jesus into Jerusalem and a Last Supper, both in the monastic church of San

Girolamo.51

Unfortunately the first was destroyed by a fire on 28 September 1705; the

second was lost without a trace after the church was closed during the Napoleonic

occupation. 52

Prolific as an engraver and probably better known as such, Boschini’s

50

Stefania Mason, Il Collezionismo d’arte a Venezia. Il Seicento, (Venezia: Marsilio, 2007), pp.

245-246, and Lino Moretti, “Marco Boschini: ‘compendiosa informazione,” Ricche Minere, 1,

(2014), p. 9.

51

Novelli describes the architectural setting of a pen drawing of the Presentation of the Virgin by

Boschini in his own collection as being Paolesca, that is, is the manner of Paolo Veronese. This

reference is available in a manuscript in the Seminario Patriarcale, Venice, P. A. Novelli,

Memorie di Marco Boschini, MS 854(7). For Boschini’s paintings in San Girolamo see Della

pittura veneziana. Trattato in cui osservasi l’ordine del Bushing…, t. II, (Venezia, 1797), p. 98.

52

Marco Boschini, Le Minere della Pittura, (Venezia, 1664), p. 461; Lino Moretti, “Marco

Boschini: ‘compendiosa informazione,” Ricche Minere, 1, (2014), p. 9-10. Moretti’s article is

really just a reiteration and condensed version of the work published by Roberto Grazia,

“Contributi boschiniani,” Studi Secenteschi, 18, (1977), pp. 207-245 which is extensive and

comprehensive.

161

earliest known subject was a currency conversion table, published as Tariffa del cambio

degli scudi forestieri in 1635.53

He also engraved images related to the Cretan War,

including a map of the island, Topografia di Candia, 1645, and in 1651 a follow up

edition titled, Regno tutto di Candia describing important localities of the island.54

He

also produced a portrait of Nicolò Dolfin in 1647, (Andrea Cornaro’s replacement) as

defender of the town of Rettimo during the Cretan conflict.55

Although no paintings of

Boschini’s remain, his engraved copy after Pietro Liberi’s The Preaching of St. Francis

Xavier altarpiece in the Gesuiti (fig. 113) and a processional print of Sant Maria della

Salute shows reasonable proficiency (fig. 114).56

Interestingly, though not entirely

surprising given the number of his publications, the only known portrait of Marco

Boschini depicts him as a writer with quill in hand and eyes cast down at his text in an

engraving by Pietro Bellotti. He studied engraving with Odoardo Fialetti, and produced

twenty-five original works that are fantasies of imaginary paintings done in the manner

53

Emmanuele Antonio Cicogna, Delle inscrizione Veneziane, (Venezia: Presso Giuseppe

Orlandelli, 1824-1853), vol. 4, p. 695 records this engraving, and Nicolo Papadopoli, Le monete

di Venezia, (Venezia: Tipografica Libreria Emiliana, 1919), vol. 3, p. 378 notes Boschini was

paid for similar work in 1665.

54

Marco Boschini, Topografia di Candia e descrizioni di Guerra, 1645, engraving preserved in

the Museo-Biblioteca Correr, Collection Correr, 12/4719, and Il Regno tutto di Candia delineato

a parte et intagliato da Marco Boschini venetiano together.

55

Marco Boschini, Ritratto di Nicolò Dolfin, Provveditore Generale di Creta, 1647, Museo-

Biblioteca Correr, Collection Correr, Vol. St. A 12/ Cl. XXXIV n. 4469.

56

A copy of the St Francis can be found in the Print Collection of the British Museum, accession

#1953,0214.134. The Salute print is in the Procuratie Nuove Museum, Venice, accession

#ST.PAL.DUC.0565.

162

and style of various contemporaries—many of whom were his friends—with each

accompanied by several verses (figs. 115-117).57

Renieri continued to produce paintings throughout his career as a dealer, never

relying solely on one form of income. For Boschini, perhaps his guild membership served

two purposes; on the one hand he continued to be part of the painter’s community in

Venice fostering a sense of camaraderie, while also presenting himself as a practitioner

(thus expanding his expertise) to his patrons.

Often, as with the faux Giorgione discovered in the house of Guasconi, Boschini

would turn to Renieri and his son-in-law, Pietro della Vecchia, for a picture. Della

Vecchia, though successful in his own right—he was commissioned to design mosaic

cartoons in the Basilica San Marco—was known for his excellent imitation of

Cinquecento masters, particularly Titian.58

Pietro Liberi (1605—1687), another Venetian

painter and contemporary of della Vecchia, was also especially good at copying the style

of Veronese, and when the availability of paintings by Old Masters was not consistent,

the demand to acquire them could lead to occasional misattribution.59

57

Boschini tended toward engraved copies after other Venetian artists and friends; including

Padovanino, della Vecchia, Liberi, Forabosco, Maffei, Langetti and Stroiffi (Bernardo Strozzi’s

student) to name a few. For his graphic work see G.A. Moschini, Notizie su Marco Boschini,

(Nozze Sorgato-Feruzzi) 1883; Marco Boschini, La Carta del Navegar Pitoresco, ed. Anna

Pallucchini, (Venezia-Roma: Instituto per la Collaborazione Culturale, 1966), figs. 1-43 for

images of his work.

58

Nicola Ivanoff, “Nicolas Regnier,” Arte Antica e Moderna, 29, (1965), pp. 12-24 for della

Vecchia’s assistance to his father-in-law.

59

Ugo Ruggeri, Pietro e Marco Liberi: pittori nel Venezia del Seicento, (Rimini: S. Patacconi,

1996) and for the most recent work, Chiara Accornero, Pietro Liberi cavaliere e fenice dei pittori

dalle avventure di spada alle lusinghe dell'accademia, (Treviso: Zel, 2013).

163

This was another skill that connoisseur dealers, or sensali, such as Boschini, del

Sera, and Renieri could promote: the ability to identify a painting and its artist, as well as

the capacity to convince a buyer the painting was legitimate through weeding out the

imposters, or maintaining an economically viable deception depending on the parties

involved. In his Ricche Minere, Boschini spends many pages encouraging the idea of

connoisseurship and the careful study of paintings, essentially endorsing his own

usefulness and suggesting to his readers that he would never purposefully pass off a

forgery for the real thing when he had dedicated himself so completely to their

identification.

How skilled any of these individuals actually were is up for debate—while

Boschini clearly knew the hand of Venetian painters, he experienced difficulty with

works produced outside his own region. The Bolognese art critic and biographer

Malvasia relates that Boschini was unable, for example, to tell the difference between

Ludovico and Annibale Carracci.60

From Boschini’s own correspondence we know

about the incident with the Giorgione—and while to us it showcases what was clearly a

market for forgeries, it also provided Boschini with a superb opportunity to show off his

abilities to recognize the truth and be in on the joke. Of course, he may not have known

if della Vecchia had not given the game away. However, despite any provenances

provided by individuals selling paintings, such information needed to be treated with

skepticism.

60

For the comment, Carlo Malvasia, Felsina Pittrice, (Bologna: Tip. Guidi all’Ancora, 1844), I,

p. 351.

164

Renieri, on the other hand, actively commissioned della Vecchia to paint copies.

Indeed he was keeping business in the family considering that della Vecchia was married

to Renieri’s daughter Clorinda. As mentioned earlier, he was a painter by trade before

entering the market as an art dealer. As a painter, Renieri’s specialization was

Caravaggesque genre pictures of fortune-telling, concerts and assemblies of soldiers

before turning to historical and biblical scenes once he settled in Venice. Although

Renieri was relied upon for careful assessments—he and della Vecchia appraised the

Widmann collection in 1659 for example—as we have seen in the case of his personal

valuations he was rather liberal.61

Del Sera, in contrast, often approached paintings more as precious items and less

as commodities. In many ways he probably saw them as an equalizing force because,

while his station was nowhere near that of Cardinal de’Medici, discussing and collecting

paintings was an activity that they both enjoyed and could speak about as equals.

Although we do not know the content of the Cardinal’s responses, del Sera’s letters show

him to be comfortable and confident with the subject of art and painting; sure of his

convictions in the face of his superior. He was an active collector, and although he

eventually did sell his collection, his purpose in doing so seems slightly less about the

possibility of profit and more for the satisfaction of the search. When he writes, only

61

The Widmann family settled in Venice in the 16th century from Carinzia and were successful

metal merchants. They amassed a large art collection in their palazzo near the church of San

Canciano in Venice. Boschini, del Sera and Renieri all came into contact with the family, but it

was Renieri who inventoried the collection. See Fabrizio Magani, Il collezionismo e la

committenza artistic della famiglia Widmann dal Seicento all’Ottocento, (Venezia; Instituto

Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, 1989).

165

three months before his death, “For twenty two years I have been to the point of love with

the most beautiful portrait ever created by the great Tintoretto, esteemed as such by all of

these connoisseurs, as much as one can judge from the works of his that one sees. Finally

last Tuesday it became mine...I keep it in my own room in order to have it always before

my eyes, and the more I look at it, the more I am amazed...”62

It is easy to see the deep affection for the art of painting that he holds; as it

requires no effort to recognize the pride taken by Boschini in the artistic achievements of

his native city spelled out within his publications. Even Renieri shows his fondness for

his craft alongside his mercantile prowess; he continued to paint and take commissions

until his death and was genuinely concerned over the dispersal of his collection. More

than just merchants with an eye only for profit, these men inhabited a still undefined

territory, setting a precedent where a passion, and what had been for the wealthy and

noble class just a pastime, could become a profession of unique distinction. Seventeenth

century social classes were rigid in their definition; but knowledge, and more importantly

appreciation and discernment of artistic nuance opened doors previously closed. These

merchant connoisseurs were sought after because they were experts in their field in a

market of visual goods that was becoming increasing complex and muddled. As

connoisseurs they could wade through and determine the good from the bad (or the real

from the copy); as merchants they could execute the buying desires of their clients. It

was the sensali who would facilitate the process of transition and eventual opening of the

62

Archivio di Stato di Firenze (ASF), Carteggio dei Artisti, V, 348, the full document is

unpublished, but this specific quotation is reprinted in Edward Goldberg, Patterns in Late Medici

Art Patronage, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983), pp. 58-59.

166

art market to a larger buying audience, and would usher in the tastemakers and

trendsetters of the coming centuries.

167

2. Boschini’s Dual Roles of Defense and Dispersal

Unlike his associates del Sera and Renieri, Marco Boschini was a native Venetian,

and as such was invested with a more personal sense of civic pride regarding the

paintings he sold. His publication, mentioned earlier, La Carta del navegar Pitoresco,

served several purposes. It was at once a guidebook to the numerous artworks spread

across the city of Venice for the connoisseur and traveling gentleman, an effusive history

of the Venetian artistic tradition, and an overall calculated response to the criticisms of

Vasari. It was also, for lack of a better description, a potential sales catalogue. Given

his profession as an art dealer, he could not have remained ignorant of that fact. Carlo

Ridolfi on the other hand, had provided a more straightforward work with his 1648 Lives,

simply moving from biography to biography without the pretense of excessive

interpretation, and often misattributing paintings. While Boschini’s Carta is part of a

larger tradition of dialogues on art, including Pino’s Dialogo (1548) and Dolce’s Aretino

(1557), discussed earlier in Chapter Two, the Carta format was one of more casual

conversation than strict academic theory.63

63

Mitchell Merling discusses this in Marco Boschini’s “La Carta del navegar pitoresco”:Art

Theory and virtuoso culture in 17th century Venice, PhD Dissertation, (Brown University, 1992).

It is not my intention to delve into the traditions of seventeenth century academic theory here. See

Giovanni Getto, "Letteratura e poesia," La civiltà veneziana nell'età barocca, ed. Andre Malraux,

(Florence: Sansoni, 1959), pp. 145-84; Luigi Grassi, Teorici e storia della critica dell’arte. Parte

seconda: L’età moderna: il Seicento, (Rome: Multigrafica Editrice, 1973), and of course Philip

Sohm, Pittoresco: Marco Boschini, His Critics, and Their Critiques of Painterly Brushwork in

Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Italy, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991) for

the subject.

168

It is important to realize that by the time Boschini published his work in 1660, the

generation of artists that had been the direct inheritors of the Cinquecento masters were

dead, and had been for twenty to thirty years. Through his teacher Palma il Giovane (d.

1628) he must have known the majority of them as a young man, or at least been given

the oral history of their career by Palma through his relationship with them. Though it is

a grim accounting, it is necessary to understand that by the time Boschini was writing, his

remaining association with the Cinquecento was already twice removed; any family

members or original students of the master were by then deceased. Marco Vecellio, the

nephew of Titian, had died in 1611, but his son Tizianello—who dedicated his work Vita

di Tiziano (1622) to the Countess of Arundel—would have been a brief contemporary of

Boschini, dying in 1650. Leandro Bassano, son of Jacopo Bassano, died in 1622;

Gabriele Caliari, son of Veronese, in 1631 from the plague, and Domenico Tintoretto in

1635 from old age. Pietro Malombra (d. 1618), Aliense (d. 1629), Odoardo Fialetti (d.

1638), Tiberio Tinelli (d. 1639), and Alessandro Varotari, il Padovanino (d. 1649), all

directly influenced or taught in the workshops of the old masters were gone, as were the

artists who had settled in Venice: Domenico Fetti (d. 1623), Johann Liss (d. 1629) and

Bernardo Strozzi (d. 1644). Ridolfi had died in 1658, while Renieri and del Sera died in

1667 and 1672 respectively. Boschini was, for lack of a better term, the last man

standing. The working artists that did surround him were the students of the inheritors of

the Cinquecento masters by the time he reached his maturity as an art dealer.

When English collectors and their agents were streaking through Venice, bent on

acquisition, it was the men listed above with whom they dealt. By the time it was

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Boschini’s turn, his associates were Pietro della Vecchia and Pietro Liberi, once the

students of Padovanino. It is not altogether surprising that the Carta would have the

nostalgic, poetic mien that is does, with the wistful impression from Boschini of a desire

for times past. Laid out in eight venti (winds), or sections, that follow a route of paintings

through the city—and written in the Venetian dialect— he inserted both an added level of

patriotism and difficulty to the text, distinctly instilling pride of place.64

The dichotomy of his publication is that Boschini is attempting to set up his

contemporaries as worthy inheritors of the Cinquecento masters in order to

simultaneously praise the old masters, while finding patronage for those artists currently

working.65

Successfully, though perhaps inadvertently, by doing so he raises the

economic value of old master works and strengthens the commercial viability of his

contemporaries to mimic their style in a derivative form. He claims Venetian painters

were adept enough in their ability as to appear as if they were not even considering the

final outcome of the painting, stating:

“Prima la giera leze de Natura,

Che se imitava quel che se vedeva

64

It is interesting to consider that the problema della lingua was also occurring during this

period; Boschini’s insistence on using the Venetian dialect could be viewed as another foil to the

dominance of Tuscany (and Vasari) across cultural media. Robert A. Hall, Jr., “The Significance

of the Italian "Questione della Lingua," Studies in Philology, 39, (1942), pp. 1-10; Alfredo

Schiaffini, "Aspetti della crisi linguistica italiana del Settecento," Zeitschrift Fur Romanische

Philologie, 57, (1937), pp. 275-295. For further discussion on the terminology and vocabulary

used by Boschini on a more technical level, see Philip Sohm, Pittoresco: Marco Boschini, His

Critics, and Their Critiques of Painterly Brushwork in Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Italy,

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991). My concern here is the overall impression of

Boschini’s work as a mannered type that has a uniquely Venetian handling.

65

Merling, Marco Boschini’s “La Carta del navegar pitoresco”:Art Theory and virtuoso culture

in 17th

century Venice, mentions this possibility, pp. 280-281, which seems most plausible.

170

Ne totalmente alora i possedeva

L’Arte, che tanto importa in la Pittura

Adesso la xe leze stabilida,

Fata dala Maniera veneziana;

E a quei che perdera sta tramontana,

La calamita sara sempre infida.

E quest xe fonda sui spegazzoni

(A dir co’dise tal bel inzegno);

Ma quei gran spegazzoni e quell dessegno

Chi non intende, e gofi e babioni.

Quela xe una maniera artificiosa

Che tra la diligenza int’un canton;

Quela xe quela che da perfezion

E la Pitura fa miracolosa.”66

He writes that it is the law of Nature to imitate what is seen, and it should be done in the

Venetian manner which is founded on loose brushstroke. He then calls them (Vasari and

his followers) “gofi e babioni” (fools and baboons) who do not understand that this kind

of brushstroke and disegno has superseded diligence and is that which “makes perfection

and Painting miraculous.” An image had to have verisimilitude in order to convince the

spectator of the higher truth it conveyed.67

This came in part from the Venetian

experience, where naturalism was a means to an end, and to the expression of an abstract

truth beyond experience. Further, Boschini suggested that the Venetians were advanced

66

Marco Boschini, La Carta del Navegar Pitoresco, ed. Anna Pallucchini (Venezia-Roma:

Instituto per la Collaborazione Culturale, 1966), p. 74, “First there was the law of Nature: imitate

what is seen. Now the law has been ordained this art: is the most important in Painting: now do in

the Venetian manner: founded on loose brushstrokes and design: they are fools and baboons who

do not understand this artifice: and the diligence of the work: It is what makes perfection, and

Painting miraculous” My translation. I would like to thank Anne and Andrea Vendramin for their

kind assistance in helping me decipher portions of Boschini’s Venetian dialect throughout this

work.

67

Marco Boschini, La Carta del Navegar Pitoresco, ed. Anna Pallucchini, (Venezia-Roma:

Instituto per la Collaborazione Culturale, 1966), pp. 509-524; Carlo Malvasia, Felsina Pittrice,

(Bologna: Tip. Guidi all’Ancora, 1844), p. 270.

171

enough in their preparation and execution of painting that the two activities were

concurrent. “Study then and draw after anatomy, reliefs, statues and the natural, but the

ends of painting are such that a painting rather than a drawing must be made.”68

Essentially, Boschini believed a true connoisseur of painting would never be disappointed

by the Venetian school no matter how stylistically derivative it might be, given the

natural, fluid abilities that her artists employed.

Palma il Giovane and il Padovanino are treated as the greatest inheritors of the

Venetian High Renaissance but not as innovators, and this is a fair assessment. Boschini

praises Padovanino for being skilled in the depiction of “Le donne, i Cavalieri, l’armi e

gli Amori” to use Ariosto’s phrase, and says that he is able to form a bon composto as a

moderate and courtly painter.69

Padovanino was very close to the early style of Titian

and used a similar vocabulary of the brush, though with less forcefulness. The addition

of his fourth Bacchanal, now in Bergamo, to Titian’s first three proved to Boschini his

ability as a modern follower of the master, but also demonstrated Padovanino’s inability

to formulate compositions at the same level of originality as Titian (fig. 9). The

illusionism practiced in Cinquecento Venice involved more than just replication of the

68


Instituto per la Collaborazione Culturale, 1966), p. 163, “Studiè pur; dessegnè l’Anotomia, I

rilievi, le statue e i naturali; i fini de Pitura è certo tali, che un quadro s’ha da far: la xe fenia.” My

translation.

69


Instituto per la Collaborazione Culturale, 1966), p. 199 for his praise of Padovanino; Mitchell

Merling, Marco Boschini’s “La Carta del navegar pitoresco”:Art Theory and virtuoso culture in

17th century Venice, PhD dissertation, (Providence: Brown University, 1992), pp. 310-311. See in

particular Maria Loh, Titian Remade, (Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2007) for an

examination of Padovanino as an artist.

172

model, it required interpretation of nature. This occurs, according to Boschini, when,

“the Venetian painter, with the foundation of study behind him, draws while he paints.

He has symmetry in his head, and his understanding thus disdains to follow (existing)

nature,” and was something that Seicento followers did not completely comprehend.70

The Carta would remain the focal point of Venetian art history well into the

eighteenth century, but it was Boschini’s second publication, the Le ricche minere della

pittura veneziana, published in 1674, that would be the more accessible of the two. The

Minere was not written in a lyric format or dialect, instead laid out as normal guidebook

to paintings in public spaces. Most compelling, he included a section titled Breve

Instruzione, or “Brief Instructions on How to Understand the Styles of Venetian

Painters,” published in the second edition, suggesting a definitive shift from his earlier

polemic position toward straightforward connoisseurship.

Boschini is clever and bold in his statements about contemporary critics, and

embraces the expressive quality of language in the same manner he expounds on the

expressiveness of Venetian art. For example when he says, “There are some blockheads

that think that those brushstrokes were done in a hurry, but in them there is a diligence

itself, the product of extreme effort. One sees that in those brushstrokes there is a

patience and that a man aims all his life, with great assiduity, study and suffering, to

70


Instituto per la Collaborazione Culturale, 1966), p. 323, the original reads, “El Pitor venezian, col

fondamento, Da studio fato, in operar dessegna. La semetria gh’è in testa, e in parte sdegna,

D’aver col natural l’intendimento.” My translation.

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arrive there at such intelligence.”71

For Boschini, Venetian Cinquecento painters held

together those elements which “modern” artists threatened to separate—what he

misunderstood however was that those Cinquecento artists had been modern in their own

right, in their own moment of artistic creation. His preference led him to support a less

original but rooted strain of their legacy. Typically, when contemporary painters appear

in the Carta, it is usually to praise the Venetian Cinquecento artist and acknowledge their

influence. For Boschini, “il buon gusto Venexian” meant lots of figures, movement,

glowing color, and clever (if not overzealous) foreshortening all applied with bold,

confident strokes. For him, “a picture without a nude is like a meal without bread.”72

While Venetian art certainly needed a champion, Boschini only served to

perpetuate the problem Seicento painters faced by lauding the tropes that were holding

them back. Further, by promoting the style of the Venetian old masters—in the pages of

the Carta, but especially in the pages of the Minere, which had become more of a tourist

publication than anything else—he set up a demand they could fill, but did not set up or

pose a challenge they could strive against. Economically he helped them, himself, and

the market along; even while he recognized the pitfalls of selling the visual patrimony of

71


Instituto per la Collaborazione Culturale, 1966), p. 86-87, which reads, “Ghe xe tanti balordi che

se pensa, Che quei colpi sia fati in pressa in pressa; E si ghe xe la diligenza istessa, E forsi fati

con fadiga imensa. La veda se in quei colpi gh’è pacienza, Che un omo tuta la so vita mena Con

molto assiduità tra studio e pena, Per arivar a quela inteligenza.” My translation.

72


Instituto per la Collaborazione Culturale, 1966), p. 380, “Un quadro senza nudo è come aponto un

disnar senza pan.” On a personal note, this is one of the best phrases I’ve ever heard in art history,

considering how many paintings could do with a little more nudity. My translation.

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Venice, and essentially confirmed that Seicento painters could not surpass their

forbearers. In an unintentional way, he looped back to the question posed by Ridolfi,

when he asked “Ultra quid faciam?”73

Unlike del Sera, who expressed none of these qualms, Boschini was aware of the

dichotomy of purpose he had established as both art dealer and art critic/champion.

When he praised the purchase of de Sera’s collection of Venetian paintings by the Medici

in the Carta, he made the pun that they have “healed the wounds” of Vasari’s denigration

of Venetian colore—and yet simultaneously they had opened new wounds with their

loss.74

Del Sera, Boschini and their associates were not the only art agents and dealers at

work in seventeenth century Venice; they faced purchasing competition from a host of

foreign buyers. The opening decades of the century had witnessed a surge in appetite for

Venetian pictures from foreign collectors—particularly the English. These outsiders did

not share Boschini’s later reservations regarding the removal and loss of paintings from

the city, nor del Sera’s passion of art for art’s sake, motivated as they were by political

and financial gain. They did however stimulate the market for Venetian paintings in a

larger populace of consumers, which subsequently created the demand that Seicento

painters were ready to fill.

73

Literally, “what more can I do?” as discussed in Chapter One, Carlo Ridolfi, Le Maraviglie

dell’arte, (Milan: Arnoldo Forni Editore, 2002), vol. 2, p. 281.

74

For issues of Leopoldo de’Medici’s despoliation of Venetian art treasures see Francis Haskell,

“Some Collectors of Venetian Art at the End of the Eighteenth Century,” Studies in Renaissance

and Baroque Art Presented to Anthony Blunt, (London: Phaidon, 1967), pp. 173-178. Marco

Boschini, La Carta del Navegar Pitoresco, ed. Anna Pallucchini, (Venezia-Roma: Instituto per la

Collaborazione Culturale, 1966), p. 404 for the pun.

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CHAPTER 5: Venice Preserv’d

…I plung’d into the Sea,

And, buffeting the Billows to her Rescue,

Redeem’d her Life with half the Loss of mine.

Like a rich Conquest, in one Hand I bore her,

And with the other dash’d the saucy Waves,

That throng’d and press’d to rob me of my Prize:

I brought her, gave her to your despairing Arms:

Indeed you thank’d me; but a nobler Gratitude

‘Rose in her Soul: For from that Hour she lov’d me1

The influence of the Venetian Cinquecento cast its shadow long into the following

century; the visual legacy of the great masters Titian, Veronese, and Tintoretto both

haunting and inspiring their followers. In his Carta del Navegar Pitoresco, using the

metaphor of a “ship of pictorial style,” Boschini began by assigning each of the masters a

relevant task aboard ship as an allegory for their role in the history of Venetian painting.

Giorgione tends to the rudder, while Bassano provides light for the workroom and the

captain’s quarters; Veronese is quartermaster and adorns the navigational light, Tintoretto

tends the bronze artillery, leaving Titian as “the vero Armiragio,” or true Admiral,

guiding the ship.2 Boschini lists no contemporary painters, but says “del resto, che tende

a le gomene, chi a le Ancore, che è Soldai, e chi Marineri” suggesting all others make up

the ship’s crew and kept it running. His venti, or winds, then propel the ship through

Venice, outlining and listing the artworks of particular note. The dichotomy of the Carta



2 Marco Boschini, La Carta del Navegar Pitoresco [1660], ed. Anna Pallucchini, (Venice and

Rome: Istituto per la Collaborazione Culturale, 1966), pp. 3-4.

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is in the conjunction of criticism and commerce it presents. Although Boschini rejected

the exportation of art from Venice in his printed work, considering it theft, in his waking

life he pursued that goal even while there were fewer Old Masters to be found for sale

mid-century. To make my own visual metaphor; Boschini’s boat was running into rather

shallow waters (in terms of available paintings), and the navigation had begun to falter

(regarding any continued production association with a master).

As I have discussed in earlier chapters, the foundation of a painter’s education in

Venice was in the bottega of their master where they learn to produce pictures in a

manner similar to his own. The images these students painted in the method of their

masters were commercially viable on the market both at home and abroad, specifically

because they referenced the master. They were carried to foreign shores where by virtue

of literal distance from any masterwork they were substituted as such. Even today, when

we look at the art market for Venetian old masters, we find scads of paintings described

as “circle of,” “manner of,” and “style of,” precisely because they are examples of these

derivative works. We have the greater luxury of the ability to make a visual comparison

to an original with the ease of an internet search; Boschini and del Sera had to rely on the

strength of their own memory.

Obviously, this situation is not particular to Venice alone; but Seicento Venice

makes an interesting case because it is bookended by two strong periods of art production

that defined themselves as recognizably “Venetian” styles, and because during that

bracketed period there was a concurrent and active art market that did not perceive these

works as mediocre. Additionally, the teaching method in Venice fostered an environment

177

of repetition and deference to established concepts of visual propaganda formulated by

the myth of Venice. In essence their production was a cyclical, self-fulfilling prophecy

that relied as much on the compositional choices as on execution of brush on canvas.

No artist in early Seicento Venice was able to step in and take the rudder, or the

admiralty. There was no Venetian painter who could take the place of Titian and provide

strong guidance in seventeenth century Venice. The modus operandi of the bottega was

not one to promote the type of individuality, talent or free agency that flourished in the

academies elsewhere. When Tintoretto displayed these tendencies in Titian’s workshop

he was promptly kicked out—yet he requested that his own son Domenico carry on in his

established manner rather than develop a strong individualism. As we have seen,

students learned from their masters by copying works, often to the point of the inability to

identify one hand from another. The practice of drawing was used in Venice to cement

workshop lessons, and although there was a passing interest in drawing manuals they

were more commercial than instructive in purpose. The Venetian master did not want

competition; he wanted conformity.

This viewpoint parallels the social structure of Venice and her government.

Lewkenor may have lauded what he perceived as a happy citizenry governed by a

benevolent and democratic patrician class, but on the other side of the looking glass was a

class of people unable (unless they could afford it) to cross social boundaries, who were

left to tow the party line for a grinding bureaucratic machine. This again is the myth vs.

anti-myth of Venice; the only variable in the equation was money. The buyers who

purchased art in the early Seicento vied with one another in fierce competition, increasing

178

the market demand and commercial interest. Like anywhere else at any other time in

history, wealth opened doors. It opened the door to Senator Ruzzini’s palazzo for

Feilding; it purchased nobility for Zuane della Nave; it kept Domenico Tintoretto in

business, and it bought Pietro Liberi a house on the Grand Canal. It was in the best

interest of a painter to conform and do what paid the most, and turning out canvases that

drew from established trends was appealing to buyers. When Ridolfi lamented in his

biography of Domenico Tintoretto that the artist spent too much time making portraits,

one can almost hear Tintoretto respond, “that’s because it keeps bread on the table.”

For Titian and Veronese in the Cinquecento, they had the standards of the Bellini,

Pordenone, and Giorgione to follow. For them, the new critical “establishment” or canon

of Venetian painting was in the process of developing into how we identify it today.

Tintoretto learned at the (metaphorical) feet of Titian and Veronese, and it would be this

slightly younger upstart who would strike out in his own manner and terribile way.3

In his own time, Jacopo Tintoretto was considered a modern painter. When

Boschini assigns him the job of gunner onboard his literary vessel, it is because of his

approach to painting; later, in the Ricche Minere, he would describe Tintoretto as un

tuono, a thunderbolt.4 But simply because he was modern did not mean that everyone

enjoyed his work. Federico Zuccaro’s Lamento della Pittura (1605) casts Tintoretto as

the beginning of the end for the art of painting in Venice; what had grandly started with

3 The development of these artists in relation to one another is examined in Titian, Tintoretto,

Veronese: Rivals in Renaissance Venice, (Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 2009).

4 Marco Boschini, La Carta del Navegar Pitoresco [1660], ed. Anna Pallucchini, (Venice and

Rome: Istituto per la Collaborazione Culturale, 1966), p. 730.

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Bellini, Giorgione and Titian was described to have degenerated with the audacity of

Tintoretto’s brushwork, writhing figures and brilliant lighting. 5

In the forty plus years to pass between Zuccaro’s judgment made in 1605 and

Ridolfi’s Lives published in 1648, the perception of Tintoretto as an artist would shift

again, as Maria Loh has rightly pointed out.6 Ridolfi massages Tintoretto into a

venerable Old Master, so he may take his place beside Titian. He has an ulterior motive

however, because the Lives is the first biography dedicated solely to Venetians, standing

as counterpoint to Vasari. Ridolfi needed Tintoretto to conform—yet again that

distinction—so that Venice could show something greater than Michelangelo and

potentially even greater Titian; a union of them both.

The moment Tintoretto scrawled ‘il disegno di Michelangelo ed il colorito di

Tiziano’ on his studio wall, his fate was sealed.7 The very fact he would conceive of

mixing these two styles together is what defines him as modern to my mind more than

any stylistic thunderbolt; the act of taking bits of things that are disparate but known

quantities, mixing them up together, and formulating something entirely new. The result

5 Maria Loh makes an interesting case for the perceived modernity of Tintoretto in “Huomini

della nostra età: Tintoretto’s Proposterous Modernity,” Jacopo Tintoretto: Actas del Congreso

Internacional, ed. Miguel Falomir, (Madrid: Museo Nacional del Prado, 2009), pp. 188-195. See

also Anna Lepschy, Tintoretto Observed: A Documentary Survey of the Critical Reactions from

the 16th to the 20th Century, (Ravenna: Longo, 1983) for the history of critical sources on

Tintoretto.

6 Maria Loh,“Huomini della nostra età: Tintoretto’s Proposterous Modernity,” Jacopo Tintoretto:

Actas del Congreso Internacional, ed. Miguel Falomir, (Madrid: Museo Nacional del Prado,

2009), pp. 191-193.

7 Perhaps only a myth of Ridolfi’s, but a good one nonetheless, Carlo Ridolfi, Le Meraviglie

dell’Arte, 2 vols., (Milan: Arnaldo Forni, 2002), p. 174.

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is familiar in some ways, completely foreign in others. Ridolfi glossed over this

however, along with Tintoretto’s many character flaws, and turned him into another

benevolent figure of distinction produced by the lagoon. I have tried to demonstrate how

through their education of repetition and the easy lure of market success it provided, the

immediate inheritors of the Cinquecento masters were not modern, not creatively

nuanced, and not trailblazing in the least when it came to stylistic ingenuity in the way

that a painter like Tintoretto was. Instead they were pedantic and mediocre, and above all

else: safe. They did not rock the boat, or make waves—they did not need to. I have also

posited that this is the reason why early Seicento Venice does not have a very good

reputation today, and why it is often dismissed as derivative in scholarship.

As I have demonstrated through example, collaboration and a collective mentality

was a fundamental characteristic of the Venetian workshop. Although this allowed for a

high turnout rate of pictures, with multiple large scale commissions able to happen at the

same time, it left no time for a student to develop their own style. It also linked success

to larger shops with more assistants; which solidified the dominance of Titian, Veronese

and Tintoretto by virtue of regard and sheer numbers. It is not difficult to understand

why the style of these painters is so prominent when the literal number of students and

assistants they had was so high, leading to greater numbers of paintings produced.

The result of all this output was a plethora of works on the market; to be bought

by the traveling gentleman, by an agent collecting on behalf of a superior, or later by

dealers like Renieri or Boschini. And this would lead to their difficulty in sorting out and

identifying the correct hand of the right artist; since by the time Boschini was at the

181

height of his merchant career, he was already interacting with a generation of artists

removed from the initial studio inheritors themselves. To handle this distance, Boschini

took his cues from Ridolfi, and while his publication was a more ardent defense of

Venetian painting and its practitioners, he didn’t have to work as hard to cast the crew of

his ‘pictorial ship’ in a favorable light. If anything, Boschini constantly had

contemporary artists doing the work for him. When Boschini sent Alessandro Varotari, il

Padovanino, to the Scuola Grande di San Rocco, he fed him the words:

Co’arivo in sto Salon più che divin,

Devento un’oca, un zane, un mezetin;

Stago oto dì, che no xe ben de mi.

E giera in la Pitura sì ecelente.

Ma la va ben cusì: che chi più intende

Più amirazion dela Virtù se prende,

E forma gran conceti in la so mente.

La vede qua, se gh’è dei studiosi,

Che dessegna sti quadri con dileto

Oh più che uman, sublime Tentoreto,

Che è nassù per dar lume ai Virtuosi!8

The over the top enthusiasm and eager delivery of his words would probably

garner a violent response if Tintoretto had heard them; he was not one to suffer fools.

But it is the ideal situation for Boschini and Ridolfi to have a considerable amount of

8Marco Boschini, La Carta del Navegar Pitoresco [1660], ed. Anna Pallucchini, (Venice and

Rome: Istituto per la Collaborazione Culturale, 1966), p. 123 reads, “When I arrived in this room

that is divine, I was a goose, a slave, a madman; I stayed for eight days beside myself spinning

with these pictures so excellent. It is good to be thus if you intend to admire the virtue that takes

and forms a grand concerts, to see this and to make a study, the designs of the paintings are

delightful, Oh what a man, sublime Tintoretto, who was born for giving light with(through his)

Virtuosity!” My translation.

182

distance from their subjects, allowing the author to remember them as he wants them to

be, rather than as they were. Even Zuccaro, less than a decade after Tintoretto’s death

felt justified in disparaging him from afar without fear of reprisal.

Where does this leave the early Seicento Venetian artist? Boschini reinforced the

idea, the intrinsic value, and the aesthetic quality of Old Master paintings. By doing so

he was selling a concept more than a commodity since few were readily available, due to

scarcity and price. However, there were plenty of pictures that paid homage to the

Cinquecento masters, whether as a pastiche or an outright copy. These came from the

students and followers that had been in the workshops of the grand masters at the end of

the 1580s and 1590s. By the time Boschini had started dealing in art in the 1630s and

1640s these works probably had already changed hands several times, and with additional

copies made the result was a muddled authorship.

Initially Palma il Giovane filled the void in the period when English picture

purchasing was particularly active, working in a Tintorettesque manner and turning out a

prodigious number of paintings until his death in 1628.9 The problem was that in the

early decades of the seventeenth century, there was no artist who expressed any sense of

the modern in the way that Tintoretto had. The forward momentum of stylistic

development that had been happening in the old master studios ceased in favor of

repeating established models; a prime example was Ridolfi’s greatest criticism of

Tintoretto’s son, Domenico.

9 See Stefania Mason Rinaldi, “Paintings by Palma il Giovane in British Collections,” Apollo,

110, (1979), pp. 396-399.

183

When he wrote “…disdaining to continue on the true path, he strayed from his

father’s manner…” about Domenico, he wasn’t talking about the Tintoretto ‘style’—that

was easy enough to imitate. What Ridolfi was referencing was the very thing that

probably got Tintoretto expelled from Titian’s studio; his ability for creative invention—

the exact thing that Boschini would wax poetic over in the stanzas of his Carta. The

immediate inheritors of the Cinquecento didn’t seem to realize that cutting and pasting

stock figures from a master’s oeuvre onto an embellished background did not make a

good painting. But those same paintings sold because they were reminiscent in character

to a Veronese or a Bassano, or a Titian or a Tintoretto, and that is what patrons liked, and

that was what they were willing to pay for.

Often mentioned is Alessandro Varotari, il Padovanino (1588—1648) and his

Bacchanals copied after Titian as an example (fig. 9).10

He was the antithesis of Palma’s

style, returning to Titian’s early work and style and influenced by his collaborator and

imitator, Damiano Mazza (act. 1573—1590). When Feilding questioned the quality of

the Titians he saw in the della Nave collection, he was probably looking at a painting by

Varotari or one of his students. While he shifted the focus away from the late sketchy

type of the masters and back to a more classical form, Varotari did not develop or

reinterpret (as Boschini advises a painter should do) what Titian had made into an

established model; he simply followed that model without significant interpretation or

10

Maria Loh, Titian Remade: Repetition and the Transformation of Early Modern Italian Art,

(Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2007).

184

derivation. As the head of a large bottega with many students, including Boschini’s

occasional business associate Pietro della Vecchia, Varotari was in a position to influence

the reception of old masters by mid-century artists. We certainly know this to be true

when della Vecchia provided the copy of the Giorgione painting.

It is through Varotari and his students that one can trace a line from Titian in the

Cinquecento to Tiepolo in the Settecento, and see the morphing of one Cinquecento

recipe into the next—whether it be compositional, brushwork, lighting—so that by the

time one arrives mid-century it could be any or all of the old masters. Laying out the line

of descent, it follows: Titian had Damiano Mazza (fig. 118) in his bottega, who taught

Varotari (fig. 119), who in turn had as students Girolamo Forabosco (1605—1679) (fig.

120) and Pietro della Vecchia (fig. 121), who both taught Gregorio Lazzarini (1657—

1730) (fig. 122), who in turn taught Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696—1770) (fig. 123),

and thus, the influential centuries of Venetian art are linked in a direct line of descent

through the Seicento—though they seem to have been a bit stylistically squeezed in the

middle.

If we ask ourselves if early seventeenth century artists were economically

successful, we must respond in the affirmative. They sold their paintings; there was a

market for their production. Every well-to-do home, no matter how modestly appointed

would have had at least one painting or one engraving hanging on the wall. While della

Nave had sold his pictures, other Venetian collections flourished and grew during the

seventeenth century. Notable at the start of the Seicento included those owned by the

Venetian noblemen: Federico Contarini, Giacomo Contarini, and Andrea Vendramin. By

185

mid- century the largest collection was that of Domenico Ruzzini—who had inherited

from Federico Contarini, and the Widmann family. Venice was a vast market for all

types of goods, and this was true for art as well. As we have seen in the case of English

buyers, putting together a collection from scratch was possible to do in very little time.

Early Seicento painters always had a market, because there always was a demand.

My first chapter raised two challenges facing the early Seicento inheritors of the

Venetian old masters; first, a reinterpretation of their visual tradition not solely dependent

on retrospection, and second, the retention of qualities inherent to Venetian art that

defined it as unique. They succeeded at the second challenge, because they failed

completely in the first. The defining characteristics of Venetian art of the Cinquecento;

the brushwork, the loose handling of paint, the dynamic poses, the elaborate theater-

esque backgrounds, and most importantly the subject choices and concentration on

propagandistic tools of the state, were the root of any artist’s education within the

workshop of a master. It was what they knew—and had always known—and it was all

around them in the city of Venice; rolling over itself in a never-ending visual wave. If

they were not native by birth, like Strozzi or Toeput for example, they would still be

sucked in as long as they remained in the Republic. So retaining the qualities of Venetian

art was not so hard to do; not a true challenge per se. When it is coupled with an attempt

to reinterpret that tradition—the first challenge—is when we as future viewers can see

their inability to succeed, and why we consider their production lacking compared with

their predecessors.

186

Ultimately, my purpose here has been to show that we should recognize the very

real obstacles faced by the generation of painters to succeed their Cinquecento masters.

We should not dismiss their work because we find it to fall short aesthetically, ignoring

the reasons of that outcome. Instead we should consider the context of the time in which

it was produced and the forces of market and reception that were driving the product. To

state it plainly; it is acceptable that their work isn’t so fantastic, because everything else

contributing to its production tells us so much more about the period and the rational of

artist and buyer. As future observers, we learn more from a historical period of transition

than if there had only been a steady upward trend. It allows us to question the

motivations and collective social flexing that occurred before a new moment of growth

began.

The allegory of the Venetian state remained intact in its visual expression through

repetition, even while much of the physical patrimony that had been its original source

material made an exodus from the Republic. As decades progressed, Seicento Venetian

painting would eventually, albeit slowly, embrace the sweeping drama and violent effects

of light and shadow taking place in painting elsewhere in Europe, but in this moment it

was content to look toward the past, rather than the future. Understanding the context of

the market, the desires of patrons and how through their artistic education, artists were

groomed to visually reaffirm the accepted stylistic standards and manner of the

Cinquecento, we can acknowledge this period for what it was—a pause before the

gathering storm.

187

1. Bernardo Strozzi, Vanitas (Old Coquette), circa 1638, oil on canvas, Pushkin

Museum, Moscow

188

2. Paolo Veronese, Apotheosis of Venice (Triumph of Venice), 1585, oil on canvas,

Maggior Consiglio, Palazzo Ducale, Venice

189

3. Titian, Woman at her Toilet, circa 1515, oil on canvas, Louvre, Paris

190

4. Titian, David and Goliath, 1544, oil on panel, Sacristy, Santa Maria della Salute,

Venice

191

5. Titian, The Sacrifice of Isaac, 1544, oil on panel, Sacristy, Santa Maria della

Salute, Venice

192

6. Titian, Cain and Abel, 1544, oil on panel, Sacristy, Santa Maria della Salute,

Venice

193

7. Leandro Bassano, Family Group of a Venetian Procurator before the Madonna

and Child, 1590, oil on canvas, Museo Biblioteca Archivio, Bassano del Grappa

194

8. Pietro Liberi, Allegory of Time and Truth, mid 1600s, oil on canvas, Semenzato,

Venice

195

9. Alessandro Varotari, called il Padovanino, Bacchus and Ariadne, after Titian,

1614-1620, oil on canvas, Accademia Carrara, Bergamo

196



197

11. Antonio Zanchi, The Virgin Appears to the Afflicted, 1666, oil on canvas,

stairwell (left), Scuola Grande di San Rocco, Venice

198

12. Leandro Bassano, Berenice, circa 1600, oil on canvas, Martini Collection,


199

13. Palma il Giovane, Venice Crowned by Victory, 1584, oil on canvas, Maggior

Consiglio, Palazzo Ducale, Venice

200

14. Palma il Giovane, Heraclius takes the Cross to Jerusalem, 1590, oil on canvas,

San Giovanni Elemosinario, Venice

201

15. Domenico Tintoretto, Portrait of a Gentleman, 1586, oil on canvas,

Gëmaldegalerie Alte Meister, Kassel

202

16. Antonio Vassilacchi, called l’Aliense, Supper at Emmaus, 1618, oil on canvas,

San Pietro di Castello, Venice

203

17. Paolo Veronese, Feast in the House of Levi (detail), 1573, oil on canvas,

Accademia, Venice

204

18. Jacopo Tintoretto, Last Supper, circa 1570, oil on canvas, San Polo, Venice

205

19. Titian, Martyrdom of San Lorenzo, 1559, oil on canvas, Gesuiti (Crociferi),

Venice

206

20. Titian, Martyrdom of San Lorenzo, 1564-1567, oil on canvas, El Escorial, Spain

207

21. Titian, Martyrdom of San Lorenzo: detail of putti, 1564-1567, oil on canvas,

El Escorial, Spain

208

22. Titian, Martyrdom of San Lorenzo: detail of conservation x-rays, 1564-1567

El Escorial, Spain

209

23. Titian, Martyrdom of San Lorenzo: detail of legs, 1564-1567, oil on canvas

El Escorial, Spain

210

24. Titian, Martyrdom of San Lorenzo: detail of arch, 1564-1567, oil on canvas

El Escorial, Spain

211

25. Jacopo Bellini, St. John the Baptist Preaching, Model Book, circa 1450,

leadpoint on parchment, Louvre, Paris

212

26. Jacopo Tintoretto, Study for the Allegory of Fortune (Felicita), 1564, black chalk

on white paper, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

213

27. Jacopo Tintoretto, Allegory of Fortune (Felicita), 1564, oil on canvas, Sala

dell’Albergo, Scuola Grande di San Rocco, Venice

214

28. Jacopo Tintoretto, Study for Mars, Venus, and Vulcan, circa 1551, black chalk,

pen, brown ink, color washed and heightened with white chalk on blue paper,

Staatliche Museum, Berlin

215

29. Jacopo Tintoretto, Mars and Venus Surprised by Vulcan, circa 1555, oil on

canvas, Alte Pinakothek, Munich

216

30. Odoardo Fialetti, Artists in their Studio, circa 1610, engraving, Il vero modo et

ordine per dissegnar tutte le parti et membra del corpo humano

217

31. Palma il Giovane, Madonna and Child, 1608, engraving, Il vero modo et ordine


218

32. Palma il Giovane, Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery, 1608, engraving, Il

vero modo et ordine per dissegnar tutte le parti et membra del corpo humano

219

33. Odoardo Fialetti, Cross Section of Head, 1608, engraving, Il vero modo et ordine


220

34. Odoardo Fialetti, Feet, 1608, engraving, Il vero modo et ordine per dissegnar


221

35. Odoardo Fialetti, Mouths, 1608, engraving, Il vero modo et ordine per dissegnar


222

36. Giacomo Franco, Feste o Balli, 1610, engraving, Habiti d’huomini et donne

Venetiane

223

37. Giacomo Franco, Torsos, 1611, engraving, De Excellentia et Nobilitate


224

38. Giacomo Franco 1611, Male Heads, engraving, De Excellentia et Nobilitate


225

39. Palma il Giovane, Frontispiece, 1611, engraving, De Excellentia et Nobilitate


226

40. Michelangelo, Dusk and Dawn, 1524-153, marble, Medici Chapel, San Lorenzo,

Florence

227

41. Domenico Tintoretto, Portrait of Procurator, circa 1595, oil on canvas, The Frick


228

42. Jacopo Tintoretto, Baptism of Christ, circa 1589, oil on canvas, San Silvestro,

Venice

229

43. Domenico Tintoretto, Baptism of Christ, circa 1590-1600, oil on canvas, San

Pietro Martire, Murano, Venice

230

44. Domenico Tintoretto, Baptism of Christ, Cleveland Museum of Art, circa 1595,

oil on canvas, Cleveland Museum of Art

231

45. Jacopo and Domenico Tintoretto, The Flagellation of Christ, 1590, oil on canvas,


232

46. Domenico Tintoretto, Adoration of the Magi, circa 1595, oil on canvas, San

Trovaso, Venice

233

47. Workshop of Jacopo Tintoretto, Two Studies of a Figure Crawling, 1533-1594,

charcoal on blue paper, Department of Prints and Drawings, British Museum,

London

234

48. Jacopo Tintoretto, Study of Michelangelo’s ‘Day’, 1550, graphite on paper,


235



London

236



London

237



London

238



London

239


oil and wash on paper, Department of Prints and Drawings, British Museum, London

240

54. Jacopo Tintoretto, Miracle of the Dying Slave, 1548, oil on canvas, Accademia,

Venice

241



242



243



244



245



246



247

61. Workshop of Domenico Tintoretto, St Mark Rescuing a Saracen from Shipwreck,



248

62. Workshop of Domenico Tintoretto St Mark Rescuing a Saracen from Shipwreck,



249



London

250



London

251



London

252



London

253



London

254



London

255



London

256



location unknown

257



location unknown

258

72. Domenico Tintoretto, Reclining Nude, late 16th

century, charcoal on paper,


259

73. Workshop of Domenic Tintoretto, Mary Magdalene, circa 1600-1610, oil and


260

74. Paolo Veronese, Mars and Venus, 1570s, oil on canvas, Metropolitan Museum of

Art, New York

261



262

76. Paolo Veronese, The Choice between Virtue and Vice, circa 1565, oil on canvas,

The Frick Collection, New York

263

77. Paolo Veronese, Hermes, Herse and Aglauros, after 1576, oil on canvas, The

Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, UK

264

78. Paolo Veronese, Scorn from Allegories of Love, circa 1575, oil on canvas,


265

79. Paolo Veronese, Unfaithfulness from Allegories of Love, circa 1575, oil on

canvas, National Gallery, London

266

80. Paolo Veronese, Respect from Allegories of Love, circa 1575, oil on canvas,


267

81. Paolo Veronese, Happy Union from Allegories of Love, circa 1575, oil on canvas,


268

82. Titian, Portrait of Jacopo Strada, 1567-1568, oil on canvas, Kunsthistorisches,

Vienna

269

83. Unknown Artist, Portrait of Sir Henry Wotton, date unknown, oil on canvas,


270

84. Palma il Giovane, Prometheus Chained to the Caucasus, circa 1570-1608, oil on

canvas, Royal Collection Trust, UK

271

85. Isaac Oliver, Portrait of Henry, Prince of Wales, circa 1610-1612, oil on canvas,


272

86. Peter Paul Rubens, Portrait of Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, 1629, oil on

canvas, National Portrait Gallery, London

273

87. Peter Paul Rubens, Portrait of Aletheia Talbot, Countess of Arundel with Sir

Dudley Carleton, 1620, oil on canvas, Alte Pinakothek, Munich

274

88. Sebastiano del Piombo, Portrait of Ferry Carondelet and his Secretaries,

1510-1512, oil on panel, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

275

89. Michiel Jansz. van Mierevelt , Dudley Carleton, Viscount Dorchester, circa 1620,

oil on panel, National Portrait Gallery, London

276

90. After John Hoskins, Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset, circa 1625-1630, oil on panel,


277

91. Odoardo Fialetti, Daniel Nijs, 1615, engraving, La pittura trionfante

278

92. Jacopo Bassano, Beheading of St John the Baptist, circa 1550, oil on canvas,

National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen

279

93. Lodewijk Toeput, il Pozzoserrato, Pleasure Garden with Maze, circa 1579-1584,

oil on canvas, Royal Collection Trust, Hampton Court Palace

280

94. Peter Paul Rubens, Portrait of George Villiers, First Duke of Buckingham

circa 1625, oil on canvas, Palazzo Pitti, Florence

281

95. Paulus Pontius (Paulus Du Pont), after Sir Anthony van Dyck, Sir Balthazar

Gerbier, 1634, line engraving, National Portrait Gallery, London

282

96. Titian, Ecce Homo, 1543, oil on canvas, Kunsthistorisches, Vienna

283

97. Jacopo Tintoretto, Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery, 1547, oil on canvas,

Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden

284

98. Daniel Mytens , Aletheia, Countess of Arundel, circa 1618, oil on canvas,


285

99. Odoardo Fialetti, Doge Leonard Donato Giving Audience to Sir Henry Wotton,

1600-1620, oil on canvas, Royal Collection Trust, Hampton Court Palace

286

100. Daniel Mytens, James Hamilton, 1st Duke of Hamilton, 1629, oil on canvas,

National Gallery, Scotland

287

101. Wenceslas Hollar, Basil Feilding, Earl of Denbigh, date unknown, engraving,

Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, UK

288

102. Tiberio Tinelli, Portrait of Lodovico Widmann, 1637, oil on canvas, National

Gallery, Washington, D.C.

289

103. Giorgione, Three Philosophers, 1509, oil on canvas, Kunsthistorisches, Vienna

290

104. Giovanni Bellini, Young Woman Holding a Mirror, 1515, oil on canvas,


291

105. Jacopo Tintoretto, Susanna and the Elders, circa 1555, oil on canvas,


292

106. Palma il Giovane, Bartolomeo della Nave, 1591-1592, oil on canvas, Birmingham

Museum, UK

293

107. Titian, Flaying of Marsyas, circa 1575, oil on canvas, National Museum,

Kroměňž

294

108. Titian, Concert Champêtre, 1509, oil on canvas, Louvre, Paris

295

109. Pietro della Vecchia, Portrait of a Gentleman, faked Giorgione, circa 1640,

oil on canvas, Palazzo Pitti, Florence

296

110. Niccolo Renieri, Self Portrait, 1623-1624, oil on canvas, Fogg Art Museum,

Cambridge, MA

297

111. Pietro Bellotto, Ritratto di Marco Boschini, circa 1660, engraving, La Carta del

Navegar Pitoresco

298

112. Paolo Veronese, Christ and the Centurion, 1570, oil on canvas, Prado, Madrid

299

113. Marco Boschini, Preaching of St Francis Xavier, circa 1650, engraving after

Pietro Liberi, engraving, Correr Museum, Venice

300

114. Marco Boschini, Visita del Doge alla Chiesa Santa Maria della Salute, 1644,

engraving, Correr Museum, Venice

301

115. Marco Boschini, La Generosità, engraving after Niccolò Renieri, circa 1660,

engraving, La Carta del Navegar Pitoresco

302

116. Marco Boschini, L’Arte maschera da vecchia la Moda, engraving after Pietro

della Vecchia, circa 1660, engraving, La Carta del Navegar Pitoresco

303

117. Marco Boschini, Un Amorino sveglia la Virtu addormentata, engraving after

Dario Varotari, circa 1660, engraving, La Carta del Navegar Pitoresco

304

118. Damiano Mazza, The Rape of Ganymede, circa 1575, oil on canvas, National

Gallery, London

305

119. Alessandro Varotari, il Padovanino, The Rape of Europa, 1635-1645, oil on

canvas, Fondazione Cariplo, Milan

306

120. Girolamo Forabosco, David with the Head of Goliath, circa 1670, oil on canvas,

Liechtenstein Collection, Vaduz-Vienna

307

121. Pietro della Vecchia, Socrates and Two Students, 17th


Prado, Madrid

308

122. Gregorio Lazzarini, Orpheus and the Bacchantes, circa 1710, oil on canvas,


309

123. Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, The Finding of Moses, 1730s, oil on canvas, Scottish

National Gallery, Edinburgh

310

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Artistic Patrimony and Cultural Politics in Early Seicento Venice

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