The House of Gold 0521405130

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BUILDING A

PALACE IN MEDIEVAL VENICE

RICHARD J. GOY

In 1406 a young Venetian noblernan, Marin Contarini, rnarried inco another ancient patrician clan. His ,Yife's farnily owned an old palace on the Grand Canal. Contarini demolished the old palace and, in 1421, he began to build the Cà d'Oro, his 'House ofGold'. This book tells the history ofthe building of the palace over a period ofnearly twenty years. After a general introduction to the city of Venice at the beginning ofthe quattrocento, Dr Goy discusses the background to the building ofthe palace, including Contarini's rnotives and the r6le of his father, a high-ranking government official. There then follows a discussion of the building industry in V enice in this flourishing period, and of the functions of the three chief building crafts - masons, carpenters and builders. In the latter half of the study, the whole building process is recreated in detail, from laying bricks to terrazzo and metalwork, with particular ernphasis on the stonework of che magnificent façade. The relationships between Contarini and his craftsmen are analysed, as is the pivotal r6le of Contarini hirnself, the architect rnanqué whose monument this was to become. The author concludes by discussing che architectural importance of the palace and its historic legacy.

THE HOUSE OF GOLD

THE HOUSE OF GOLD Building a Palace in Medieval Venice RICHARD J. GOY

� CAMBRIDGE

V UNIVERSITY PRESS

Publishcd by the Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1RP 40 West 20th Streec, New York, NY 10011-4211, USA 10 Stamford Road, Oakleigh, Victoria 3166, Australia © Cambridge University Press 1992 First published 1992 Printed in Great Britain at the University Press, Cambridge A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress cataloguing in publication data Goy, Richard J. (Richard John), 1947Cà d'Oro, House of Gold: building a palace in medieval Venice / Richard J. Goy. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-521-40513-0 1. Cà d'Oro (Venice, Italy) 2. Architecture, Gothic - ltaly - Venice. 3. Vcnicc (Italy) - Buildings, structures, etc. 4. Contarini, Marino, ca. 1385-1441 - Homes and haunts - Italy - Venice. I. Title. NA7756.V417G68 1992 728.8'2'094531 - dc20 91-34435 CIP ISBN 0521 40513 o hardback

UP

To the memory of my parents

CONTENTS

page

Lise of illustrations Preface .-\cknowledgements

xn

XV!l XVlll

Glossary of terms

XlX

ources and methodology

XX!l

Genera! introduction P

RT I VENICE IN THE EARLY QUATTROCENTO 1 The economie and politica! background 2

The city in 1400

3

The medieval Venetian palace

PARTII

THE CONTARINI CASADA

5 IO 16

Contarini's business activities

21 23 29 32 37

A domestic interlude: family and servants 1426-1430

41

The new palace at Santa Sofia: motives and methods First impressions: the plan, structure and appearance of tbe palace

45

-+ 5 6 7

The Contarini: a great patrician clan

9 10

3

Marin and bis marriage Antonio Contarini, an ambitious father

PART III BUILDING IN MEDIEV AL VENICE 11 The building tracie guilds 12 The men who built the palace: an introduction

50 59 61 65

13

Building contracts and procedures

72

1-t 15

The stonemasons' yards Technology on site Daily !ife on site

77 84

16 17

The building industry: money, wages and standards of living lX

88 92

X

CONTENTS

PART IV BUILDING THE PALACE: THE FIRST STAGE 18 19 20 21 22

99

Building the palace: first records 1421 The appointment of Zane Bon; two master masons Carpenters on site 1425-1426 The work of Matteo Raverti and his bottega 1425-1427

101 107 117 122

The well-head: Bartolomeo Bon 1427-1428

133

PART V THEFRONTFAçADE

137

23 24 25 26 27

The main façade: its design and appearance Zane Bon and the main façade: the arcade to the quay The work of Bon on thc façade up to 1429

28

Building the quay and assembling the façade I

174 181

29

Assembling the façade II : a locu111 master builder and a master blacksmith

186

Matteo Raverti and the façade: the lower loggia The upper loggia

PART VI COMPLETING THE FABRIC

l 39

146 154 163

193

Building the upper walls 1429-1430: maestro Cristofolo The carpenters: the Rosso bottega 1428-1430

198

The ancillary trades 1428-1430: terazer,fregador, pentor, intaiador

202

The fìnal stages of building the palace: che last works of Bon Antonio di Martini

206

PART VII FINISHING TOUCHES 35 The House of Gold: decorating the façade 1431-1433 36 The last work of the stonemasons: Rosso and Romanella after 1430 37 The last works of builders, carpenters and glaziers

225 227 233

30 31 32 33 34

38 39 40

195

217

240

The completed palace: the image and the cost

2 44

Marin Contarini: the fìnal chapter Postscript: Contarini's succession

2 47

PART VIII CONCLUSIONS 41 Contarini's ròle 42

The legacy of the palace: its historical importance

43

The legacy of the Cà d'Oro in the later work of Bartolomeo Bon

250 257 259 262 266

Appendix 4

Marin Contarini's first contract with Zane Bon; 1422 (1423)

274 276 278 279 281

Appendix 5

Marin Contarini lends Zane Bon money to buy a house; 1424

282

Appendix 6

Marin Contarini's contract with Zane Bon for the crenellation; 20 Aprii 1430

44 The after-life of che palace Appendix 1 the cost of building the palace Appendix 2 a selection of typical unit costs for building materials Appendix 3 daily rates of pay for masters and apprentices; all in soldi

CONTENTS

Xl

Appendix 7

Marin Contarini's contract with Antonio di Martini for the

Appendix 8

completion of the building works; Ma y 143 r Marin Contarini's contract with Zuan da Franza for the decoration of the façade; r 5 September 143 1

285

Appendix 9

Marin Contarini's schedule of glass for the windows; 1436?

289

Appendix ro Index of craftsmen and suppliers Select bibliograph y Index

287

290

293 299

COLOUR ILLUSTRATIONS

Between pages 136 and 137 I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X XI XII XIII

The Cà d'Oro: façade to the Grand Canal The Cà d'Oro: the cortile, wich Bartolomeo Bon's well-head The Cà d'Oro: portai to the street, by Matteo Raverti The Cà d'Oro: colonnade to the Grand Canal, by the Bon workshop The The The The The The

Cà d'Oro: pendant-tracery co the first-floor windows Palazzo Ducale: decail of the first-floor loggia Cà d'Oro: Raverti's first-floor loggia Cà d'Oro: silhouette of the cracery to the first-floor loggia Cà d'Oro: Raverti's upper loggia and Bon's crenellation Cà d'Oro: interior of the first-floor pòrtego, towards che loggia

The Cà d'Oro: detail of the first-floor cortile window, by Gasparin Rosso Cà Foscari: façade from the pontile ac San Tomà The Porta della Carta: façade to che Piazzetta San Marco

Xli

BLACK AND WHITE ILLUSTRATIONS

1 2

Civitas Veneciaru(m): view of the Molo and Piazzetta San Marco by Erhard Reuwich, 1486 The Veneto-Byzantine palazzo: Palazzo Donà

3

The mature gothic palazzo: Palazzo Giustinian, near Cà Foscari

18

4

Late gothic window detailing: Palazzo Zorzi on Rio dei Greci

18

5 6

Venetian patricians: detail from Carpaccio' s Reception of the Ambassadors Rialto and Santa Sofia: detail of de'Barbari's view of 1500 Portrait of doge Francesco Foscari by Lazzaro Bastiani

24

35

Venetian shipping: trading vessels moored in the Bacino, from de'Barbari's view of 1500

39

7 8 9

page

11 17

26

A nobleman and his boatman: detail from Carpaccio's Reception of the Ambassadors The Cà d'Oro: sketch location plan The Cà d'Oro: view from the Pescheria, showing the extent of stonework down the flank wall

51

12

The Cà d'Oro: ground-floor pian

53

13 14

The Cà d'Oro: first-floor pian The Cà d'Oro: second-floor pian The Cà d'Oro: long section through the androne and pòrtego

54

The Cà d'Oro: long section through the cortile

56

10 11

15 16 17 18

The Cà d'Oro: detail of the upper façade, showing the combined works of many masters including Bon, Raverti and Romanello The Palazzo Ducale: detail of the Drunkenness of Noah, perhaps by the Raverti workshop

55 56

19

The Palazzo Ducale: the Molo window by Pier Paolo delle Masegne

20

Canaletto: The Stonemasons' Yard

70 73 78

21 22

The Cà d'Oro: a simple late gothic window, from the second floor The stonemason at work: detail from a capital at the Palazzo Ducale

79 81

Xlii

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

XIV

23

The Cà d'Oro: single-light widow to the cortile, by Gasparin Rosso

82

24 25

The medieval building site: masons and builders The medieval building site: carrying and laying stonework The medieval building site: ladders, pulleys and tools Palazzo Barbaro at San Vidal

85

26 27 28

85 86 III 112

29

The Scuola Vecchia della Misericordia : detail of entrance portal The Scuola Vecchia della Misericordia: tympanum by Bartolomeo Bon

30

The Cà d'Oro: the ground-floor androne

31

The Cà d'Oro: colonnade to the cortile Timber yards behind the Barbaria delle Tole, from de'Barbari The Cà d'Oro: detail of capitai and barbacane in the cortile

II4

32 33 34 35

36

37 38

39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46

47 48

49 50

115 Il9 120

The Cà d'Oro: upper part of the entrance portal The Cà d'Oro: detail of the fiorone to the entrance portai

124

Santo Stefano: detail of upper part of entrance portai

126

The Madonna dell'Orto: façade The Cà d'Oro: the cortile staircase The Cà d'Oro: detail of the treads and balustrade of the staircase The Cà d'Oro: detail of stone head from the staircase balustrade Bartolomeo Bon's well-head from Corte Bressana

126

The The The The The The

Cà Cà Cà Cà Cà Cà

d'Oro: d'Oro: d'Oro: d'Oro: d'Oro: d'Oro:

main façade to the Grand Canal eastern part of the façade square window detail on eastern part of façade western part of the façade the fìrst-floor loggia flanked by pendant-traceried windows the ground-floor riva

The Cà da Mosto: remains of the Byzantine ground-floor colonnade

53

The The The The The

51 52

113

Cà d'Oro: capitals to the ground-floor riva, modifìed by Zane Bon Cà d'Oro: detail of stonework to tbe corner of the façade Scuola Vecchia della Misericordia: detail of façade window Cà d'Oro: pendant-tracery to fìrst-floor windows Cà d'Oro: detail of tracery to right-hand fìrst-floor window

125

129 l3 l l3 l 134 140 142 142 143 144

147 147

149

150 155 156

15 7

54

The Cà d'Oro: upper part of tbe east corner of tbe façade

55

The Cà d'Oro: ground-floor and mezzanine window detail

56

The Cà d'Oro: elaborately carved rainwater hopper by Zane Bon

57 58 59

The Cà d'Oro: Matteo Raverti's fìrst-floor loggia The Palazzo Ducale: stonework to the fìrst-floor loggia The Cà d'Oro: drawing of tbe fìrst-floor loggia

60

Palazzo Morosini, now Sagredo: detail of façade

61 62

The Cà d'Oro: silhouette detail of the tracery to the lower loggia

169

The Cà d'Oro: stonework to tbe lower loggia, by the Raverti workshop The Cà d'Oro: the eastern capitai to the fìrst-floor loggia

171

63

159

161 161

165 166 167

168

172

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

6-165 66

The Cà d'Oro: the three westernmost capitals to the first-floor loggia The Cà d'Oro: balustrading to the first-floor loggia Thc Cà d'Oro: the second-floor loggia

67 68

The Cà d'Oro: drawing ofthe second-floor loggia Cà Foscari: upper part ofthc façade

69 70

The Cà d'Oro: oblique view ofthe second-floor loggia and crenellation The Cà d'Oro: silhouette detail_ ofthe tracery to the upper loggia

-2 -3

Pilc-driving: an eighteenth-century illustration by Grevembroch The Cà d'Oro: the ground-floor riva The Cà d'Oro: the lower and upper logge, assembled in 1429-30

-17

5 -6

Medieval bricklaying, from a fourteenth-century French chronicle The Cà d'Oro: southern end of che first-floor pòrtego

xv 172 173 175 175 176 177 177 183 189 190 196 199

The Cà d'Oro: silhouette ofthe ground-floor screen

207 2IO

O

The The The The

1

The Cà d'Oro: one ofthe two stone lions from the parapet

-9

Cà d'Oro: upper east part ofthe façade, with Bon's crenellation Palazzo Ducale: dctail ofcrenellation Cà d'Oro: east corner ofthe façade, with Bon's arcade and crenellation Cà d'Oro: detail ofcorner capitals and arcading

2

The Cà d'Oro: centrai section ofcrenellation, with higher pinnacles

6 7

The The The The The

9

The Cà d'Oro: detail ofreconstructed balconies to façade Palazzo Priuli at San Zaccaria: corner window

Cà Cà Cà Cà Cà

d'Oro: d'Oro: d'Oro: d'Oro: d'Oro:

oblique view ofthe upper and lower logge to the façade first-floor corner windows five-light window to che cortile, by Gasparin Rosso detail offive-light window to cortile second-floor cortile window, probably by Rosso

211 212 213 214 215 229 229

234 234 235 236

90 91 92 93

The Cà d'Oro and the Grand Canal in 1833, by Lessore The Cà d'Oro: façade to the Grand Canal, by J. B. Waring in 1844

237 252 253

The Cà d'Oro and the Grand Canal by Lefevre c.1850 Palazzo Bernardo: details ofpendant-tracery

254 263

9-1-

Palazzo Corner Cavalli: six-light window to the piano nobile

264

95

Cà Foscari: façade to the Grand Canal

265

96 7 9 9

The Porta della Carta: facsimile ofBartolomeo Bon's 'signature '

267 268

99 100

The Porta della Carta: façade to the Piazzetta San Marco The Porta della Carta: detail ofcentrai window The Porta della Carta: figure of Prudence, probably by a Tuscan artist Palazzo Grimani at San Luca, by Sanmicheli

269 270 272

PREFACE

On 16 August 1406 a young Venetian nobleman named Marin Contarini was betrothed to a patrician lady, Soradamor Zeno. Both parties to this nuptial contract were members of ancient and highly respected aristocratic dynasties that collectively formed the backbone of the Venetian Republic. Such marriages - almost always arranged for mutual benefits, both financial and politica! - were many and frequent, and in some ways this particular contract was unremarkable. However, the Contarini were no 'typical ' noble clan (if such a clan existed), but were the most numerous and probably the wealthiest and most influential of all the great casade (clans) of the Serenissima. This fact alone made the marriage of a first-born son of a Contarini of more than passing interest. Marin had an important politician for bis father; in addition, be was a man with an ambition to make bis mark on the city, a capitai that was already the wealthiest metropolis in Europe. Marin Contarini's marriage was thus destined to be fruitful, not in the sense of producing numerous heirs to the extensive clan, but in quite a different manner. The first stage in achieving bis aim was Marin's purchase of an old palace that his wife's family owned, on the Grand Canal not far from the Rialto Bridge. Twenty years later, he had finally achieved bis aim, and had built the finest, most richly decorateci palace in this city of palaces. This book tells che story of the construction of that magnifìcent house, the Cà d'Oro, the House of Gold.

XVll

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The research for this book would not bave been possible without the generous financial support of the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, for which I am very grateful. Ofthe Venetian authorities who provided the essential material for this study, I must firstly thank Dottoressa Maria Francesca Tiepolo, former Director ofthe Archivio di Stato, together with ber helpful and patient staff Thanks are also due to Dottoressa Nepi Scirè of the Soprintendenza ai Beni Artistici for permission to photograph the palace, and to the staff at the Cà d'Oro for their kind co-operation. On a more personal leve!, I must thank a number of dose friends in Venice for their practical support: in particular, Giulio Vianello for finding me excellent accommodation in which to stay; Giovanni and Maria Barella for their ever-warm welcome; and Primo Zambon for bis boundless generosity with practical sustenance. Elsewhere, thanks are due to Professor Donald Queller for information on the 1379 Estimo, and to Frances, Lady Clarke, for details of the restoracion of the Porta della Carta. A debt of thanks must also be recorded to Dr Susan Connell-Wallington, for kindly allowing me access to the results ofher own considerable researches, and from which I bave derived great benefit. Finally, thanks to two friends and professional colleagues in Venice: to Dott. Arch. Mario Piana for bis extensive knowledge of tbc later history of the Cà d'Oro, and to Dott. Arch. Nubar Gianighian, who somehow found time to patiently read the whole draft of the study, and who made many constructive suggestions. Any errors that remain are, ofcourse, entirely my own.

Acknowledgements for illustrations All of the illustrations are by the author, with the exception of the following: Colour illustration II: Mario Piana; black and white illustrations 5 and 9; Venice, Accademia; 7: Museo Civico Correr, Venice/Edwin Smith; 20; The Trustees of the National Gallery, London; 24: Dijon Library; 25: Giraudon; 26: Bibl. Nationale, Paris; 29, 41: Victoria and Albert Museum, London; 71: Museo Civico Corner, Venice; 74: Yan. Thanks are due to the above for their kind permission to reproduce these illustrations.

XV!ll

GLOSSARY OF TERMS

I have restricted this glossary to a list of Venetian terms found in the Contarini papers. The essential work to consult for much greater detail is E. Concina Pietre Parole Storia: Glossario della costruzione nelle fonti veneziane (secoli XV - XVIII) (Venice 1988)

Venetian acconciar, conzar (v.) agudo albedo albergo altana antenella

Italian restaurare chiodo abete salone, salotto terrazza

archeto arpese

archetto grappa

aterar (v.) balcon

bonificare finestra

balconada banda barbacane

lato, fianco mensolone

becadelo

modiglione

bordonal butar (v.) butar zo (v.) cà cale calzina campaniel caneva

grossa trave fondere demolire casa, palazzo via, strada calcina campanile cantina XIX

English to restore, repair nail fir (timber) large room .or hall roof-terrace small section of timber, orig­ inally used in boat-building small arch iron tie or strap, esp. for fix­ ing stonework to reclaim lanci from lagoon window, together with its sill and surround large, multi-light window side, flank jetty; a large bracket support­ ing a beam modillion, sometimes a stringcourse very large beam or architrave to found take down, demolish a large house or palace street lime bell-tower, turret, pinnacle store-room

xx

GLOSSAR Y

canon cantinella canton cavanna chiave colmo compir (v.) cuete dentada desfar (v.) erta esafora fazà, fassà fero foiami foio fòntego, fòndaco foro fregar (v.) gorna investisonij lido, lio loza marangono mastelo

tubo di scarico listello di legno angolo

merladura, merli modioni inurer napa palificada passo

merlatura modiglioni muratore cappa di camino palizzata passo

pè, piè

piede

pergolo piana

poggiolo piana

piera (viva) piera cotta pmze pòrtego pozal quadro, quarelo retorto, retortolij no sabiom

pietra mattone

trave tetto finire modanatura cornice a dentelli demolire stipite esafora facciata, fascia ferro fogliami foglio magazzmo apertura levigare grondaia rivestimento capitello loggia falegname mastello

salone vera da pozzo mattone cornice a corda canale sabbia

waste-pipe small timber lath corner, external angle covered boat-shed or dock beam of fir or larch roof to complete cusps of tracery dentil-course demolish, take down jamb, pilaster six-light window façade, fascia, front surface piece of ironwork foliage-carving leaf, as of gold etc. large store or warehouse openmg to polish (fregador = polisher) rainwater gutter cladding capital of a column loggia, balcony carpenter barre! (capacity approx. 75 litres) crenellation modillions, corbel-brackets builder chimney-pot timber pile-foundation Venetian unit of length equaI to five feet (1.738 metres) Venetian foot, unit of length equa! to 0.348 metres balcony or sill slab of a balcony, flat piece of material natural stone brick (lit. 'baked stone ') roundels of stone or marble great hall of a palace well-head brick, occ. paving-stone rope-moulding minor canal sand

GLOSSARY

salizzada smaltar (v.) soaza soldar (v.) soler

strada selciata intonacare cormce allacciare piano

sopede straforo taiapiera tavola, tola terazer tolpo trar (v.) trave vero ziolo

base traforo tagliapietra tavola, asse terrazziero palo stendere trave vetro barra

XXI

paved street to plaster cormce to fìx or fasten together storey; thus: soler de soto = fìrst piano nobile; soler de erto (alto) = second piano nobile base of a column tracery, fretwork stone-mason plank of timber, floor-board terrazzo-layer timber pile or stake to spread out beam glass bar or rod of iron

SOURCES AND METHODOLOGY

Ali of che original archival material for this study is found in two large buste of documents in the Archivio di Stato in Venice. They are numbered B.269, 269 bis and B.270 in the archive of the Procurators ofSan Marco de Citra, the latter two being filed together. The first contains a miscellany of papers, among them wills and other legai documents, and commessarie relating to the estate of Marin's son Piero; I have made limited use of some of these in outlining the family context in which the palace was built. Together with them are several scraps of paper relating to the building of che Cà d'Oro; they are in no sequence although most have been numbered, probably by Cecchetti. Some are badly damaged and many are not dateci - in fact, they are mostly aides-mémoire written by Marin Contarini, although one or two are informal contracts or short accounts, later transferred to his proper ledgers. Among them are important papers, including the contract with Zane Bon, and that with Zuan da Franza for the decoration of the façade. But the key to the whole story lies in four small, unassuming paper ledgers or libretti. These were to form Marin's weekly accounts in which he entered records of expenditure in building the palace. The analysis of these libretti (ali in B.269 bis) forms the basis of the present work. Of the four, though, the first (L.I) contains further loose papers but no written text. L.II seems to have been begun as an alphabetical notebook of expenditure under such headings as 'manoalij, marangonij, murerij ', but was quickly discontinued. Ledger no.III is of much more value as it records payments covering the period 1421-30, and is complete up to page 15t. However, after 1426, Marin began his fourth and last libretto, and this became his definitive informai record. Most of our knowledge derives directly from its contents, and Contarini also transferred his notes from L.III to it. The 134 sides of notes contain a wealth of detailed information, although it is of lictle value today in its present form. Marin's notes are highly informai, usually completed weekly, but sometimes monthly, or at longer intervals as seemed appropriate. At other intervals (usually at the dose of an account) he transferred information into his 'great ledger ' (librogrando), which is unfortunately lost today. We are therefore left with these notes and the necessity to re-organize them. The difficulties are these: Marin grouped his entries approximately into trades, so there are details on ali the major crafts scattered at intervals, interspersed with other trades, and ali of them covering quite different time-spans. Some entries are far more detailed than others and, indeed, they are often completely out of chronological arder. Thus we find long, meticulous lists of daywork payments interspersed with lump sums paid for materials, and occasionally XXll

SOURCES AND METHODOLOGY

XXlll

with summaries of contracts with the senior craft masters. None of the recorded sequences bears any direct relationship with the works on site. There are two further difliculties, one minor and one of some importance. The minor one is Marin's calligraphy, which is typical of the period, but since his notes were solely for his own cemporary records, he made no attempt to make them legible to anyone else, and many words are difficult to decipher. The greater diff1culty is that Contarini was often unspecific as to the precise nature of the work for which he carefully noted the cost. Thus, for example, we know nothing of what Zane Bon worked on for nearly two years at the beginning of the building programme, although we know every single day that he dici work. Paradoxically, we often have more detail of routine daywork (particularly stone-carving) than we have of some vita! construction work such as the installation of the roof. For all these reasons, it is clear that a degree of ingenuity is necessary to attempt certain elements of this reconstruction of Contarini's palace, although in many other places, fortunately, the picture is extremely clear. Broadly, it was necessary to take apart each one of Marin's libretto entries, group them by trades, and then group them chronologically. It was chen possible to compile a 'profile ' of each individua! who made some contribution to the building process, either on the site or as a su pplier of ma terials. Thus a brief biogra phy of each man evolved, and these could then be again grouped by trades. All of this information was then transferred onto a very large chart, to produce an overall picture of patterns of work and employment over the long period of construction. This was in the form of a bar-chart, that simple but effective technique still in use on sites all over the world, and one which immediately allows one to identify certain centra! operations that formed the 'critica! path ' to che building process. From these patterns emerged the twenty or so chapters that form the latter part of this book. It is salutory to remind ourselves that, in many respects, building sites have changed little over the centuries. The laws of statics, as always, determine cercain processes, from consolidating foundations to tiling roofs; many of these processes had to be followed in 1430 in much the same way as they have to be followed today. It is my intention, therefore, to try to bring to !ife once more the events that took place on the banks of the Grand Canal nearly six centuries ago, and to illustrate the ways in which Bon and Antonio di Martini dea!t with problems very similar to many encountered on any building site today. Note: for the sake of brevity, references to Contarini's four libretti have been shortened to L.I, L.II, LIII and LIV throughout the book. A note on money and coinage There are many references to the Venetian monetary system in this book, and a brief explanatory note may assist the genera! reader. The system was complex, involving moneys of account as well as coinage, gold as well as silver. The elements that concern us comprise the smaller system of coin based on silver, and which was used for retail transactions in the city. The base coin was a small penny or piccolo, of impure silver; twelve piccoli formed a soldo (shilling) and twenty soldi formed one lira or lira di piccoli (the latter to distinguish it from a larger money of account, the lira di grosso). The system thus had the same structure as that used in Great Britain unti! recent times, and was expressed in the same way, thus: L 14.3.9. These uoits were all based on silver. But there was one vita! gold coin, first minted in r 284, and which became che international symbol of the strength of the Venetian economy: the gold ducat. The ducat weighed 3.55 grams and was highly refined to 0.997 parts pure gold. The

XXIV

SOURCES AND METHODOLOGY

purity and stability of the ducat gained an extraordinary reputation for reliability throughout Europe and, of course, in the capital itself. Since the ducat was of gold and the lira of silver, their relative values fluctuated according to the strengths and weaknesses of the two metals. But since the ducat was more reliable than the lira in both weight and refinement, the lira gradually became worth less in relation to the ducat. For example in 1421 there were exactly five lire (roo soldi) to one ducat, but by 1425 the ratio had 'slipped' to L.5.4.0. (104 soldi); by 1431 a ducat was worth ro6 soldi, and by 1436 the ratio was I IO soldi or L. 5. IO.o. In this book I have followed the original figures in the accounts, usually expressed in lire, soldi and piccoli. Larger lump sums and contracts were often expressed in ducats, in which case I have indicateci the conversion rate which then obtained, to provide a constane reference. It would be wrong to assume that when Marin paid someone in ducats, a large bag of gold coins changed hands immediately; payment was often made by smaller coinage, or even by a credit or promissory note. Venice was a dangerous city.

The Venetian calendar The Venetian year began on 1 March; all dates have been modernized. Spellings Spellings varied widely in this period. For consistency and to retain a degree of authenticity, I have retained the original spellings of proper names in their most frequently used form. Thus Zane Bon, rather than Zan or Zuan Bom, or any other permutation. The modem standardized spelling of Buono was never used at this time. Zuan or Zane is the Venetian form of Giovanni and Zorzi the Venetian form of Giorgio.

General introduction

Tbe principal aim of tbis book is in essence a simple one: to describe tbe story of tbe construction oftbe most beautiful and ornate ofall tbe many medieval palaces ofVenice. By a detailed examinati:on of tbe documents recording its construction, I bope to try and piece togetber tbe bistory oftbe building oftbe Cà d'Oro and to analyse tbe concributions made to its construction by many different people: by tbe wealtby and enligbtened client, Marin Contarini; by his important teams of master masons and sculptors, notably Raverti and the cwo Bon; but also the work ofmany secondary and even quite minor craftsmen, all ofwbom made some contribution to the whole masterpiece. In tbe process, I hope to provide some insights into tbe organization oftbe building industry and into the relationships between tbese masters and between them and their employer. We are doubly fortunate in tbe case ofthe Cà d'Oro. lt is one ofcomparatively few great medieval houses that were not significantly altered by Renaissance modernizations; it is also possibly unique in that detailed accounts of its building bave survived today. Such records from this period, the early quattrocento, are notoriously rare; in tbe cases of many dozens of importane buildings tbe written evidence, ifit survives at all, often consists solely of a single brief agreement, a 'statement ofintent ', coucbed in tbe most general ofterms, and with no detail ofdesign approacb or metbod ofconstruction. Drawings are rarer still; although dozens were produced for any major building project, they were considered by the masters who produced tbem to bave no intrinsic value oftheir own, and were simply destroyed when tbe work itself was complete. So tbe Contarini papers, though by no means voluminous, may give us a unique insight into che minutiae ofthe Venetian building industry in tbe later middle ages. Tbe documents were originally identified by B. Cecchetti, who published his discussion on tbem as 'La Facciata della Cà d'Oro dello Scalpello di Giovanni e Bartolomeo Buono ' (Archivio Veneto vol.xxxr, 1886); later writers who drew on this 'discovery ' were P. Paoletti in L'Architettura e la Scultura del Rinascimento in Venezia (Venice 1893) and, much more recently, Edoardo Arslan, with a useful and accessible summary in Venezia Gotica (Milan 1970). An importane word ofwarning is necessary, though, regarding the present condition ofthe palace. Many works of alteration and destruction took place in the nineteenth century:' culminating in tbe various works of Baron Franchetti. These collectively resulted in the loss ofa considerable amount oforiginal material. Tbe long, extensive programme ofrestoration chat began in the 1960s (and which is effectively not yet concluded in 1991) also revealed

2

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

extensive deterioration of structural timber and plasterwork, which has again been largely replaced. These works are discussed a little more fully in Chapter 40, but we may summarize by recording that most of the present interior - both visible structure and decorative finishes - is not origina!, as is fairly clear on inspection. Most of the structural external 'shell ', however, has survived largely intact. The cortile windows survive, as do many important elements of the main façade. The terms of reference of this study are admittedly narrow. One day it may be possible to published a more wide-ranging work on the flourishing building industry in this important period. The most significant study so far is undoubtedly Susan Connell's The Ernployrnent of Sculptors and Stonemasons in Venice in the Fifteenth Century (London and New York 1988), to which a number of references will be made in this study. A more broadly based survey is Giovanni Caniato and Michela Dal Borgo's excellent Le Arti Edili a Venezia (Venice 1990), which was unfortunately published too late for the author to consult in preparing the present work. lt contains much archival materia!, chiefly from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, and is comprehensively illustrateci. The Cà d'Oro appears to have been something of a special case in some respects (for example, as far as site practices and procedures are concerned) and it seems unwise to draw too many broad conclusions from an analysis of the way in which Marin Contarini built his unique palace. N evertheless, it is hoped that this study is of some value, and may at least allow a few of the documents relating to the palace to reach a slightly wider readership than they have hitherto.

PARTI VENI CE IN THE EARL Y QUATTROCENTO

The first three chapters of this book form a generai introduction to the context in which_Marin Contarini's new palace was to be built. We cannot consider any work of art in a vacuum, particularly when that work is also a practical structure reflecting the socia! and economie requirements of the time. To understand as fully as possible how and why the house came to be built, we should first set the scene in these wider terms, and outline the chief characteristics of the city and Republic of the early quattrocento. Ihe man who built the Cà d'Oro was a member of one of the most notable of the r 50 patrician clans that made up the body politic of th�Serenissima; we therefore see bere, built in brick and stone, a direct expression of power both politica! and economie, a palace built by a patrician whose family helped to rule the state. Let us first briefly consider Marin's Republic, the great power that would shortly become the wealthiest state in Europe.

1 The economie and politica! background

'... the one home today of liberty, peace and justice, the one refuge of honorable men ... Venice, rich in fame, mighty in her resources but mightier in virtue, solidly built on marble, but standing more solid on à foundation of civic concord, ringed with salt waters but more secure with the salt of good counsel ... '

Petrarch wrote these familiar and somewhat ingratiating words in 1364, in recognition of the Republic which had given him a (temporary) new home, and expressed in rather more literary terms the commonly held view of the Most Serene Republic in the later trecento: a city-state of extraordinary wealth and equally extraordinary stability of government. Despite the undeniable existence of còteries of discontent (among the patriciate rather than the common people) the Republic was indeed a remarkable haven in an era ofturbulence and change. Later, in the sixteenth century, the Signoria - by now long used to generalized expressions of awe - encouraged the image of Venice as 'the new Rome', a simile with which once again many ofits notable visitors found it easy to concur. Native Venetians were naturally the first to extol their capita! and its unique environment, in which the materia! wealth of the Republic and its noble clans could be happily balanced in the eyes of Petrarch and other intellectual observers by its sagacious and 'democratic' government. It was not truly democratic, since all power was concentrateci in the hands of a few adult male nobles, but in sharp contrast to the wide­ spread despotic rule of many other Italian cities by individua! dynasties (the della Scala in Verona, the Este in Ferrara, the Visconti in Milan, the Carrara in Padua), the Serenissima was seen from all parts of the peninsula as a symbol of the prosperity that could derive directly from 'democracy', stability and continuity. The perception, then, was of a benevolent ò1ìgarchy - a gerontocracy, in fact - of wise, learned men, whose own interests coincided with those of the state, and hence by implication and extension with the whole population. Despite these enduring images, the Serenissima suffered two major crises in the later trecento, both of which threatened (in very different ways) the fabric of government of this apparently immutable Republic. The first was the plague, and notably the devastatirig outbreak of r 348; the short-term effects of this disaster were so severe that for a time it was very diffìcult for some agencies of government to function. The effects on the economy were similarly devastating, leading to acute shortages of manpower in all spheres of activity for some decades. Indeed, the only mitigation to this socia! and economie disaster was the fact that every other city in northern ltaly had been similarly affiicted; all found themselves in a greatly weakened 5

6

THE HOUSE OF GOLD

condition. No precise figures have met with universai acceptance, but it is probable that more than half of che city's population dieci in barely two years, and there were many !esser outbreaks over the following decades. When Petrarch wrote, therefore, the economy was stili recovering, a process enhanced by the recovery ofCandia (Crete) in that same year. But two decades later, Venice was stili short of men when the final, decisive conflict with Genoa, the ancient sea-rival, became inevitable. The final victory at Chioggia in 1380 was only achieved with the herculean aid of many ordinary citizens; che war had further weakened the economy, though, and foreign tracie had been severely disrupted. The remarkable underlying resilience ofthe economy greatly assisted the recovery, and che last two decades ofthe trecento can thus be characterized as an era of the re-establishment of tracie, of che reconstruction of the Republic's fleets (both mercantile and military) and the consolidation once again of che city's pivotal position at che centre of east-west tracie. It was into this climate of reconstruction that Marin Contarini was born, six years after the War of Chioggia. Immediately after r 3 So che Republic had reinforced the ranks of the patriciate by en­ nobling thirty citizen families, ali of which had made considerable sacrifices towards the war with Genoa. This gesture not only reinforced the ròle of the patriciate as the oligarchy that ruled the Republic, but it also significantly shifted the balance of power at San Marco away from the older dynasties such as che Con carini towards these 'new' men. Prior to this en­ noblement, the patriciate had been broadly divided into two groups, the so-called 'long' and 'short' families, the case vecchie and che case nuove. The older families numbered only 24, and included the Contarini, Giustinian, Zeno, Dandolo and Morosini. Ali of them claimed direct descent from the earliest noble clans that had settled in the lagoons and founded the Republic back in the eighth and ninth centuries. Some even claimed descent from the Classica! Roman nobility who had ruled this part ofltaly. The 'short' families were more numerous; many had risen to prominence in the thirteenth century as a result ofsuccessful tracie, and they included such equally familiar names as the Foscari, Grimani, Trevisan, Venier and Vendramin. The groupings were more than a reflection ofa superficial élitism, however, and gave rise to serious factionalism in the later fourteenth century. 1 There is some evidence to suggest that the ancient families, like the Contarini, had fared worse from the war and its aftermath than the 'short' families had, possibly because they had more resources committed to long-distance trade. 2 As this tracie was re-established in the 1380s and 1390s it tended to become concentrateci on luxury products, goods of high value (and potentially high profit) bue small bulk; they could thus be carried on smaller ships with fewer crew and stili yield good returns. Manpower shortages persisced, though, and che Signoria actively encouraged migration of suitable skills to re-populate the city. Dalmatia had been lost to Hungary under the treaty that followed the defeat of Genoa, and this deprived the Republic of a valuable and convenient source of both men and materials, particularly of timber for the Arsenal and the building industry. Much of the migration carne from the other direction, from the Italian mainland, particularly after 1404, when the Serenissima began its notable era of Terraferma expansion. Despite short-term difficulties, the economie picture slowly improved. Venice's trading empire remained extensive, and its subject towns in the eastern Mediterranean were widespread. Corfù was regained in r 386, and this key island - though not a major souree of materials - remained a vita! fort and way-station for the merchant fleets for the long 1 2

S. Chojnacki 'In Search of the Venetian Patriciare' in Rwaissa11ce Venice, J. R. Hale ed. (London 1974); pp.48 et seq. F. C. Lane Vwice: A Maritime Rep11b/ic (Baltimore 1973); p. 196, passim.

THE ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL BACKGROUND

7

remaming !ife of the Republic. Many further ports were retained, including Madone, Negroponte and Crete. Later, Lepanto and Durazzo were gained, despite the ominous advance of the Turk on the Balkan mainland. The vital element in this recovery, and one in which Contarini had a direct stake, was the system of voyages of the galere da mercato, the fairly small (roo-300 tonnes) trading galleys which made regular voyages co many parts of che Mediterranean. After r 3 So convoys to Alexandria and Beirut were resumed almost immediately and, by the mid-r38os, a regular service had again been established to Constantinopole, 'Rumania ' (the Black Sea), and the longest regular route of all, via the Straits of Gibraltar and Biscay to Flanders, Bruges, London and Southampton. Later in the fifteenth century, further routes were added, such as the Trafego route to the north African ports of Tripoli and Tunis, and thence to Aigues-Mortes, Valencia and Màlaga. This extensive network formed the regular basis of the Republic's 'spice ' tracie and the source of much of ics wealth. 3 �on after 1400, the Serenissima's foreign policy began to take two distinct directions; the first was the traditional one outlined above, based on well-established sea-trading links; the ocher concerned its relationship with mainland Italy, where circumstances conspired to compel che Signoria to take a more positive ròle than it had clone hitherto. The immediate threat to Venice's traditional policy of carefully balanced neutrality carne from Padua and the Carrara, a threat that became so serious and so dose to the lagoon that the Signoria made the unlikely ally of Gian-Galeazzo Visconti of Milan, to reduce the danger ofVenice being surrounded by che Carrara and their allies, and hence cut off from che vital routes north and west that conducted che Republic's Terraferma tracie. The unlikely alliance was successful; Carrara was defeated, with the result that both Padua and Treviso carne under directVenetian control for che first time. Fortunately for the Republic, Visconti, who himself could have become a danger to Venice's security, was carried off by a recurrence of the plague in 1402; with bis successor stili a child, there was no danger from Milan for some years, during which time the Venetian economy further improved and these first gains were consolidateci. The culmination of this first phase can be said to bave been the re-taking of Dalmatia in 1409. Despite further threats from Hungary, che period from 1404 to the early 1420s was one in w�ich peace d_ominated over war, and the regaining of wealth over intermittent setbacks. At che very end of this period, work began on Marin Contarini's optimistic masterpiece, his confident act of faith, and we can hardly avoid drawing an immediate parallel between his new palace and the spirie of the era. T':_e years to 1405 had already seen the new mainland territories further enlarged; by chat year the important cities of erona and Vicenza had fallen to the winged lion, ai_Well as the smaller but strategie towns of Feltre, Bassano and Belluno. This was a considerable gain; besides the wealthy towns themselves, much of their territory was flat, rich farmland, while much of the remainder was hilly and forested, a valuable source of timber and building stone, as well as iron ore from Feltre. Thus, a�r centuries of pursuing a policy of non-intervention in the territorial affairs of the Terraferma, the Republic had in the space of a very few years become a major power in the peninsula. The process took time, but ihe domestic economy became larger, stronger and more complex, as these new riches were absorbed within the patrimony of the state. Later, in che 1420s, it became çlear that tpis new empire had to be retained and defended, that it was by no means simply a provider of funds for the coffers of che Palazzo Ducale; chat the financial

y

3 Lane Vrnice p. 197. See also F. llraudel The Pers ecrive f the World (Civilization and Capitalism 15th-18th Century, 111) p o (London and New York 1984); p.126 and map, p.127.

8

THE HOUSE OF GOLD

traffìc was to be two-way, as the Signoria was forced to spend massive sums on the defence of Verona, Vicenza and the rese. However, the general economie atmosphere during this 'honeymoon ' period to around 1423 is well summarised by the tone of the famous 'state of the nation ' address given to the Signoria by doge Tommaso Mocenigo shortly before his death. Despite the inevitable suspicion of hyperbole, many of his figures are perhaps not far from the truth; among che impressive economie achievements that he recorded (chiefly, of course, those during his own reign), was the reduction of the national debt from ten million to six million ducats. The income of the Republic from the city alone was 750,000 ducats a year, with a further 464,000 from the Empire da Terraferma and 376,000 from the Empire da Mar. As Braudel has pointed out, this tota! of more than 1½ million ducats was substantially more than that of the entire kingdom of France, with ten times the population and twenty times the territory of the Serenissima. 4 Venice was now undoubtedly the wealthiest state in Europe. Mocenigo's atmosphere of economie confidence is further evinced by his investment figures: ten million ducats a year were invested in trade, he claimed, and they yielded two million a year in interest and a further two million in trading profits. These were returns that many ]esser rulers could only dream of. Doge Mocenigo had presided over a decade of territorial consolidation but he advised caution over further expansion that would directly incur the enmity of the Visconti, into whose traditional sphere of influence che Republic had already made considerable inroads. Mocenigo counselled a circumspect policy of further consolidation and, just before his death, he went as far as to directly petition che Maggior Consiglio not to elect Francesco Foscari as his successor because of his known aggressively expansionist views. Mocenigo named several suitably moderate candidates as his successor among whom was a pivotal figure in our story. But the bitterly fought election of 1423, soon after Mocenigo's speech, did indeed bring Foscari to the throne of San Marco. This was a further decisive phase in che development of Venice's foreign policy, which might be characterized - at che risk of over-simplification - as the victory of che 'hawks ' (those favouring a strong, even bellicose foreign policy) over the 'doves ', the more moderate Mocenigo faction. Foscari's policies embodied higher risks, but also potentially much higher rewards, and the economie climate in the Republic thus also changed significantly in the years after 1423. In the same year, though, Federico Maria Visconti's attack on the Romagna set the stage for a further act in the struggle for a balance of power between Milan and che formerly purely aquatic interloper on the Terraferma. Two years later a further unlikely alliance of mutual self-interest was formed, this time between che Serenissima and the Medici and the Dukes ofSavoy, to curb Federico's own territorial ambitions. The battles of the following year brought Venice che prize o(Brescia, and victory over Visconti at Vignola. A year later again, Bergamo, too, carne under the flag of San Marco, and a peace was signed in 1428 which confirmed almost ali of these new gains by the Republic. This was to be the maximum westward extent of the Terraferma empire, and it took Venetian territory three-quarters of the way from the lagoon shores towards the gates of Milan itself. Venice was no longer a maritime trading port but one of the three great powers of the Italian peninsula, with lands wealthier in cities and resources than either Milan or Florence. The Republic was soon forced to defend this newly acquired empire on several occasions. A further peace with Milan in 1433 was immediately followed by more fighting, and the • Braude! The Perspective p. 120. There are stili very few reliable generai histories of the Republic in English; but see also J. J. Norwich Venice: The Rise 10 Empire (London 1977) and the same author"s Venice: The Grearness and the Fa/I (London 1981).

THE ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL BACKGROUND

9

hostilities that began in 1437 continued intermittently for a further five years; among them were the famous battles over Lake Garda in 1438, and the Venetian victory at Verona in the following year. Even the ancient rivai Genoa was not entirely beaten; there were stili occasionai conflicts of interest aver tracie, and physical encounters off Chios, a surviving far­ off Genoese possession in the Aegean. They were concluded by a resounding victory by the Venetians at Portofino, within Genoa's own maritime backyard, a rather belateci retribution for Genoa's own impudence in taking Chioggia half a century earlier. The 1430s were thus a decade of covsiderable although _intermittent military activity, most of it essential if the new Terraferma empire was to be retained. De_spite the wealth of the mainJ.and cities, their defence was very costly, and for a time the massive works of fortification co Verona and Bassano began to exceed the revenues from these and other towns, a situation that probably prevailed unti] the 1450s, when once again the Terraferma began to show an overall 'profit '. It is most instructive to superimpose Marin Contarini's early life onto the events just outlined. He was born in 1386, the year of the taking of Corfù, and he carne of age in 1404, the year in which Rovigo and the Polèsine had come under Venetian dominion. Indeed, the years in which he achieved adulthood coincided precisely with this great era of territorial expansion. In 1406, at the age of 20, he was betrothed; by now the Serenissima had added Verona and Vicenza to its conquests, and six years later, when Contarini had finalized his purchase of the Zeno palace at Santa Sofia, the Republic had further added Zara and Dalmatia to the Empire da Mar. In 1418 Contarini finally began the preliminary works that were to lead to the building of his new palace. It must bave seemed an extraordinarily propitious time to embark on such a venture: the city was at a peak of power, prestige and confidence. Indeed, the riches of the Republic had by now almost transcended reality in the minds of many outsiders, to achieve che status of myth and legend. A few years later, Bernardo Bembo was to claim grandiloquently that 'the Venetians are called new Romans '; less narcissistically, even Pope Pius II, by no means an unquestioning champion of the winged lion, had to concede that 'today the Venetians are the most powerful people both on lanci and at sea, and seem not unfitted to the larger empire to which they aspire '. 5 It is therefore in this context of politica] and commerciai self-confidence and the many and increasingly frequent parallels with ancient Rome that Contarini's masterpiece must be set. He was by no means alone in expressing confidence in both himself and his Republic in brick and stone; the mid-quattrocento was an active era for palace-building, dozens of which rose along the Grand Canal and on almost every large parish campo. But none was to display quite the sa!Pe measure of technical skill and flamboyant decoration as the house that carne to be known as the Cà d'Oro. 5

Far some observacions on Venice as che ncw Rame, see D. S. Chambers The Imperia/ Age ofVenice 1380 to 1580 (London 1970) pp.1272; far che Terraferma expansion, see, inter alia, N. Rubinscein 'Iralian Reacrions co Terraferma Expansion in che Fifceench Century' in Re11aissance Venice, pp.197-217.

2 The city

1n 1400

. . . E adunque terra grandissima, bella et eccellente ... et ha un Canal Grando; ... Atorno, da tutte do le bande, e case de patritij, et altri bellissimi, da ducati 20,000 in zoso ... Et quelle sono sopra ditta Canal e molto appresiate, et valeno più delle altre ... (Marin Sanudo, 1493) 1

What was the general appearance of Venice in the early 1400s, when Contarini was a young man? Into what urban context was bis new palace to rise? Firstly, of course, it was a very large city indeed; although numbers fluctuated and we bave no accurate census figures, Venice nevertheless probably contained an average of more than roo,ooo people throughout the quattrocento. Sanudo's own estimate of150,000 in 1493 is generally thought to be rather high, but perhaps not excessively so. Even within a range of perhaps roo,ooo to 130,000 it was a true metropolis, one of the handful of largest cities in western Europe, certainly the largest 111 northern Italy after Milan; and northern Icaly was the most highly urbanized reg1011 111 Europe. 2 There are no reliable illustrations of the city in 1400. Such quattrocento views that bave survived are not only much later, from after c.1475, but all are highly stylized views, with very little urbanistic detail. We can only attempt a sketch of Venice's general appearànce by an interpolation between two famous views, one earlier and the other from 1500. The first, drawn in 1346, is, ofcourse, 'Paolino's ' drawing, a true plan of the city, indicating over a hundred of the island-parishes, as well as che network of minor canals and the perimeter extent ofthe metropolis. There is no detail of the physical fabric, although we know from other sources, chiefly the surviving buildings themselves, that the overall texture of the city, from Mendigola in the west to San Pietro in Castello, was by now well-established. Equally well­ established were the twin hubs of Rialto and San Marco, while the course ofthe Grand Canal was lined with palaces and fondachi. They varied considerably in size and grandeur, certainly in 1346, but by 1400 reconstruction had led to the first stages of a long period of redevelopment, particularly ofnoble palaces, that was to continue for much ofthe quattrocento. 3 De'Barbari gives us a far more precise picture of the city 150 years later, but to arrive at an approximate image ofContarini's Venice we must interpolate between these two illustrations. In 1400 the peripheral zones were certainly less built-up than they were by de'Barbari's time, 1 2

3

Marin Sanudo 'De Origine, situ et Magistratibus urbis Venetae'; Bibl. Correr, Venice, MS Cicogna no.969 c.9r. Published as La Città di Venetia, A. C. Aricò ed. (Milan 1980) p.20. D. Beltrami Storia della Popolazio11e di Venezia dalla Fi11e del Secolo XVI alla Cad11ta della Rep11bblica (Padua 1954); K. J. Beloch Bevolkeri111gsgeschicl,te Italiens (Berlin 1961) Vol.3. See also Lane Venice pp.11-21, 462. Thc plan of 'Paolino' is in Bibl. Marciana Venice MS Lat. Zan. 399. IO

THE CITY IN 1400

II

1 Civ iras Veneciar11(111): vicw of che Molo and Piazzetta San Marco by Erhard Reuwich, J 486. and in many places there was a green fringe of orchards and vineyards down to the muddy edge of the lagoon. The city centre, though, was fully built-up, particularly the sestieri of San Marco, San Polo and western Castello. Many new palaces were begun in the early quattrocento, often replacing smaller, older houses; others were enlarged or modernized. Most palaces were naturally built by the patriciate for its own use, but in an era of numerical expansion and increasing prosperity, some were built for rent, either by the noble casade themselves or by the many religious houses or the scuole grandi. Marin Contarini was thus brought up into an era of significant building activity, and be would bave soon become aware of the value of a building site. 4 Of the remaining basic form of the city, all of the elements shown by de'Barbari had been well established considerably more than a century earlier. The great axis of the Grand Canal divided the metropolis into two roughly equal parts; of che two nuclei, Rialto and San Marco, the former was the hub of tracie and commerce and the latter the seat of government. The collection of streets forming the Mercerie, joining these two hubs together, had the most dense collection of specialized retail activities, and they were lined with shops and workshops, not only of mercers, but selling many types of domestic requirement: ironmongery, cloth and fabrics, pots and pans, forniture and so on. Nearby were other specialized groups, the names of which survive today in che screet-names: Frezzeria (arrow-makers); Fabbri (smiths); Stagneri (tin-workers); Casselleria (chest- and cabinet-makers).5 4 The most authoritativc analyses ofVenice's mcdieval urban development are: S. Muratori Studi per 1111a Opera11te Storia Urba11a di Ve11ezia (Rame 1959); P. Maretta L'Edilizia Cotica Ve11ezia11a, 2nd cdn (Venice 1978); and P. Maretto's encyclopaedic La Casa Ve11ezia11a 11ella Storia della Città (Vcnice 1986). .; Sce note 4 abovc.

12

THE HOUSE OF GOLD

These central zones were all densely developed, but a little further east, north and west, densities were somewhat reduced, and we could find such activities as timber-yards, small boatyards (squeri) and stonemasons' botteghe, surrounded by larger houses and cottages. One branch of the Contarini, for example, owned a number of timber-yards just beyond S. Maria Formosa. In all of these inner zones, local life was centred on the parish church and its campo (square), its campanile and the houses of one or two of the most important residents. Some parish campi were a good deal more important than others, particularly the largest ones, situateci where a number of routes carne together. S. Maria Formosa fulfilled such a nodal function on one side of the city, as did San Polo on the other. Many other parishes were small, their campi already hardly more than courtyards, hemmed in by housing, with a canal at one corner. Contarini's home parish was one of these, as was his new parish of Santa Sofia. 6 Beyond the congested central zones and these slightly less-developed secondary districts, there was a further broad zone where development was still very mixed and of widely varying densities. Particularly in northern Cannaregio and parts of Dorsoduro (and the Giudecca) there remained many small orti, vineyards and private gardens, interspersed with a few patrician palazzi, some more modest houses of the citizenry and many tiny cottages. Some of these peripheral zones were highly specialized; many were occupied by monastic houses, while to the east of the city was the great naval base and shipbuilding centre of the Arsenal, surrounded by the hundreds of houses of its various groups of craftsmen. To the north, along the lagoon shore, a large zone was occupied by timber-yards, some of which we will identify later. And along the quays of the basin of San Marco were the moorings of sea-going merchant-ships, with their attendant support facilities. Finally, at the very perimeter, in many places the city simply petered out into mud-banks, unreclaimed barene or marshes. These were particularly extensive in the west near Santa Croce monastery and in parts of Castello beyond the Arsenal. 7 Venice was a great, crowded city; it was also an extremely cosmopolitan one. For a long time there had been colonies of foreigners living here, brought by international tracie, the chief among them being Greeks, Slavs, Dalmatians, Turks, Jews, Egyptians and Germans. But the need to restore numbers and trade after 13 So also led to the migration into the city of significant numbers from the Italian mainland, a migration that seems to have intensified with the beginnings of the Terraferma empire after around 1400. To some extent these groups of foreigners were discrete and complementary; the first were essentially involved with tracie: dealers, merchants, sea-captains, foreign bankers and ambassadors, whose contribution to city life was often transitory. Migration from the Terraferma was not only probably more permanent at an individual level, but was based largely on static skills; migrants brought their crafts with them, settled, and became a part of the domestic economy rather than its international element. Soon there were men from Bergamo, Verona, Como and even Milan, drawn to the city by the prospects of work, and - if they did possess a useful skill - encouraged to stay by the Serenissima. 8 Venice began to exert over the Terraferma the almost irresistible magnetic force that all great capitals exert over their subject lands. 6 See che view of Jacopo de'Barbari in I 500; see also Muratori Studi p.67 et seq. Some of the marshy zones near S. Croce were not reclaimed unti! as late as the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; sce the invaluable study of this zone by G. Gianighian and P. Pavanini 'I Tereni Nuovi de Santa Maria Mazor' in G. Gianighian and P. Pavanini eds. Dietro i Palazzi: Tre Secoli di Architettura Minore a Venezia 1492-1803 (Venice 1984), pp.45-57. 8 Far the builders who migrated to Venice and worked on the Cà d'Oro, see below, pp.6871. 7

THE CITY IN l400

13

Civitas Venetiarum Contarini's Venice tbus conformed in many ways to tbe popular conception of tbe medieval metropolis: noisy, crowded, teeming witb street-life and on occasions, undoubtedly foul­ smelling too, as Tafur and otber contemporaries remarked. 9 However, tbe city's wealtb ensured tbat in some respects Venice was better-administered tban many otber towns at tbis time. Paving was still rare in tbe medieval city, and tbe Piazza San Marco was already paved; otber squares followed later. And several agencies were establisbed to maintain civic amenities, to clean canals, collect refuse and so on. 10 Tbese efforts - tben as now - seem to bave been only partially successful, and Tafur noted in 143 8 tbat on occasion aromatic spices were burned in tbe streets to render tbem less noisome, measures tbat few otber cities could bave afforded to take.11 To a large extent, too, tbe acute congestion in tbe city centre was tbe direct result of success and wealtb. Few starved, and beggars - numerous elsewbere - were rare. 12 Food sbortages were also comparatively rare in an era notorious for irregularities of barvests and supplies. Sbortages were simply tbe result of a failed barvest in one of tbe Republic's 'granary lands ', and beyond tbe Signoria's control; bowever, strenuous efforts were made to buy grain from virtually any source wben sucb a crisis arose, and tbe Republic was fortunately ricb enougb to pay tbe inflated prices tbat inevitably resulted from sucb scarcity. 13 Venice traditionally obtained mucb of its grain from tbe Abruzzi, Romagna and tbe Marcbes; since tbe Adriatic Sea was mare nostrum to tbe Republic, supplies could usually be assured of a safe passage bome. Many officials monitored various aspects of city life. Tbe cbief agency affecting tbe pbysical fabric of tbe city was tbe office of tbe Piovego, establisbed in tbe tbirteentb century; tbe Piovego bad general responsibility for maintaining streets and canals, and for giving approvai for building works. It also gave consent for bridges (if tbey were private) and built and maintained tbe public ones. Tbe tbree justices of tbe Piovego ensured tbat no new building encroacbed onto tbe public streets, most of wbicb were already very narrow. Tbey bad tbe power to order tbe demolition of sucb encroacbments and to enforce existing building-lines. Tbe only forms of extension normally permitted were jetties (barbacani) but even tbese were subject to maximum projections. Colonnades over a public quay were also occasionally permitted, but tbe quay bad to be maintained as a rigbt of way.14 Tbrougbout tbe later fourteentb and fifteentb centuries, tbere is clear evidence of a policy of improvement of tbe fabric of tbe city on tbe part of tbe government. As Cessi observed, tbis approacb ranged from tbe normai policing and maintenance tbat was essential for tbe city to function to a steady programme of real improvements in fields sucb as tbe paving of streets, tbe widening of very narrow calli, tbe building of new bridges and tbe excavation of 9 M. Letts Pero Tafiir, Travels and Adve11tures 1435-9 (London 1926). 1 ° For a concise summary of these many agencies and officials, see Sanudo's description in La Città, pp.104-52. 11 See note 9 above. 12 For ali aspects ofpoverty in the city and the history ofthe Republic's approach to it, see B. Pullan Rich and Poor in Renaissance Venice (Oxford 1971). 13 For a good generai discussion offood prices, see F. Braudel The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, 2nd edn (London 1966) Vol.1 fig.42 and pp.570-005. See also Lane Venice pp.305----'7. 14 R. Predelli Il Liber Comu11is . . . del R. Archivio Generale di Venezia (Venice 1872); Regesti, 23 Sept. 1277. Marin Sanudo defined the duties of the Piovego (inter alia) as these: 'etiam sono sopra le strade publiche, che niun non intacha del Commun, et havendo intachate, lefa buttar zoso, et tien la rason del Commun che niun non occupa il suo con alcun edifico; et mettono li termini quando si vuol fabricar le case. Ha11no custodia del cavar di canalli, et tien conto del/i debitori, che participa a ditte cavation, zoè che ha11no case in quella contrada, etfa11no pagar la ratta soa ... '; La Città p.123.

14

THE HOUSE OF GOLD

additional public wells.15 The paving programme had begun in I 340 under the authority of the Piovego; we cannot chart its progress in detail, although by the end of the fìfteenth century not only were the Piazza and Molo paved, but also the campi of S. Polo, the Frari, S. Angelo, SS. Zanipolo and S. Zaccaria. Most of the other larger squares had at least a paved route across the centre or a brick-paved area around the well-head. 16 Other public works included the replacement of old timber bridges by new ones of brick and stone, and the consolidation and widening of quays, some of which were also faced with stone. Some of these works were at least part!y privately funded; the Signoria itself paid direct!y for generai works such as the paving of the Piazza or the quays of Rialto, but in cases where such works would only benefìt a small, finite number of citizens, then these relevant families were expected to pay a contribution in proportion to the benefìt to be derived. However, as Zuccolo has pointed out, 17 this principle grew so complex and difficult to administer that in the fìfteenth century it was replaced by more universal methods of fìnancing. And in 1408, when it was necessary to re-excavate the Grand Canal, a levy was raised from every family in the city in proportion to their assessed ability to pay. After ali, the work would clearly benefìt the entire city. 18 This increased awareness of the unity of the metropolis and of the necessity for constant maintenance and improvement led to further legislation in the quattrocento; one such act was that of 1433 which banished a number of small squeri (boatyards) from various sites along the Grand Canal 'from San Marco to Santa Crose '. 19 It was claimed that their presence impeded navigation, but in an era of considerable prosperity and palace-building by the patriciate, it seems far more likely that this was simply a pretext to release more valuable lanci for such purposes. A similar measure of 1462 ordered the stonemasons of the city to remove their botteghe (workshops) to at least 8 passi (40 feet) from the banks of any canal; in this case, the claimed intention was that detritus from the yards should not fall (or perhaps be pushed) into the canal to further impede navigation and the flow of the tides; 20 once again, though, we may impute similar motives to those suggested above. We should perhaps conclude this sketch of Contarini's Venice by mention of the greatest socia! scourge of the era - the plague. The disastrous epidemie of 1348 was simply by far the worst of a long, continuing series of such outbreaks, with further signifìcant recurrences in 1400 and 1423. The entire city (like Milan and Florence) lived in permanent dread of the disease, the effects of which - at worst - could be far more devastating than any war in terms of loss of !ife and disruption of tracie. It knew no bounds of wealth or class, of course, and in a great crowded city like Venice could spread with terrifying rapidity. The Florentines could escape its ravages with comparative ease, the rich to their country estates until it was safe to return (as the Decameron so clearly shows), but for the Venetians matters were a little more difficult. The Republic was as well prepared as any city could have been at the time; indeed, it was considerab]y in advance of most in having estab]ished (as early as 1368) a School of Medicine. Thirty years earlier still, the Signoria had appointed twelve full-time doctor­ surgeons, all paid by the state, to monitor and improve the city's health. But the very density of the city and its physical isolation meant that once established, the plague took its own course. Worst of all, the quays were always crowded with merchant shipping from every part of the Mediterranean, any one of which might harbour rats carrying the disease. Various 15 R. R. Cessi La Po/irica dei Lavori Pubblici della Rep11bblica Veneta (Rame 1925) pp.18 er seq. 16 Ali clearly illustrateci by de'Barbari, in l 500. 17 G. Zuccolo Il Resta11ro Starico nell'Archirerr11ra di Venezia (Venice 1975) pp.48-52. 19 C. Tentori Della Legislazione Veneziana (Venice 1792), p.12 r. 20 Tentori Della Le,qislazione p.95; sce also Zuccolo Il Resra11ro p.50 note 76.

18

Cessi La Po/irica p.18.

3 The medieval V enetian palace

Et e da saper che sono ditte case, aver pallazzi, Jabricate a modo nostro in tre, et quattro so/eri eminenti et belli ... [con] scalie di piera viva, balconi, aver o finestre tutte de veri ... (Marin Sanudo, 1493) 1

The Venetian palazzo of the early quattrocento represented the culmination of three centuries ofthe slow evolution of this highly distinctive building typology. 2 The palace itself or, more correctly, the palazzo-Jòntego, was the fusion of two different although closely relateci activities under one roof: the - warehouse and offìces of the merchant-noble on one hand, and the living accommodation for the same noble and p.is family on the other. Ihe earliest surviving examples are Veneto-Byzantine in style; that is, they are a development of the later Romanesque style which was widespread in northern Italy in the twelfth century, and to which had been grafted several specifìcally Venetian features, some of which had their own origins in Constantinople and the Eastern Empire. Such houses were built on only �wo storeys, the ground floor largely being reserved for commercia! functions, and centred on a large hall or androne, with the vital access to water for the unloading of goods. The u_pper floor consisted of a single large, spacious apartment for the merchant's family. Many of the fìnest houses were built on the Grand Canal, partly for reasons ofstatus, but also because water access was very much easier than was possible from the narrow, tortuous rii that criss-crossed the rest ofthe city. The most characteristic aspect ofthese palaces, other than this basic function-zoning, was their symmetrical plan and façade, both features that survived numerous stylistic developments over the centuries. The major feature of the plan was the long, central hall, giving access to the accommodation that gave off it on both sides. On the ground floor, this androne was a reception area both for goods and for important visitors who arrived by water. The flanking rooms were used for the storage of goods and for offìces for the merchant; there were often staff quarters as well. At the waterfront end of the hall there was usually a spacious open loggia with steps down to the water. The plan ofthe fìrst floor closely followed that ofthe floor below. Again there was a centrai axis, the great hall or pòrtego, but here it formed the hub ofthe living accommodation, giving

-

1 Arico ed. La Città, p.21. For analysis of plans and structures, see Maretta L'Edilizia; for the stylistic developmenr of the gothic palazzo, E. Arslan Venezia Gotica (Milan 1970) is essential. For a summary of the development of the typology, with some typical constructional details, see R. J. Goy Ve11etia11 Vernacular Architecr11re: Tradirional Ho11sing i11 the Venetian Lagoo11 (Cambridge 1989), esp. Chs.5, 8 and 9.

2

r6

THE MEDIEVAL VENETIAN PALACE

17

2 Thc Veneto-Byzantine palazzo: Palazzo Donà near San Silvestro.

açcess to the main living rooms and bedrooms on each side. Access to this apartment was usually by means of an open scair in the P:ivate courtyard at the rear of the house. This cortile also contained a well, chat is, a storage cistern for collected rainwater, with ics well-head on the t.9p. The cortile also provided lighc and air to the rooms at the rear ofthe house. The canal end ofthe upper great hall was often terminateci with an open loggia or a large group ofwindows giving fine views over the Grand Canal. Façades were already usually highly formalized and, in many cases, rigidly symmetrical, reflecting the plans behind them. Unti! the fourteenth century, palaces were stili built on only c-;_,o storeys, since there was not yec sufficient shortage ofland to justify higher structures, with che additional difficulties of foundations that these would pose. Ali of these stylized, symmetrical façades are distinguished by large areas of open loggia or windows; Venice had che incomparable security afforded by its natural moat, the lagoon, and thus had no need to resort to the massive masonry and small windows of contemporary houses on che Terraferma. The basic elements ofthe Byzantine palace survived, although with some modifìcations, for a remarkably long time. The semicircular, stilted arch, che most characteristic mocif of their façades, was gradually replaced by an arch with a cusped head, and then in turn by one with a cusped intrados and extrados; fìnally carne a fully gothic arch, with a trilobate head of complex and often refìned profìle. Later variations followed. However, the basic structural and spatial form of the palazzo underwent surprisingly little fondamenta! alteration over the long period of the later thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the chief development of the pian being the reduction in the width of the loggia onto the canal, 3nd hence the further rationalization of the window pattern on the façade into three zones of equa! width. Tjie gothic arch was universal by the end of the thirteenth century, although its profìle continued to be developed unti! the last great era of medieval building, che period in which

18

THE 1 IOUSE OF GOLD

3 The mature gochic palazzo: Palazzo Giustinian, near Cà Foscari 4 Late gothic window decailing ac Palazzo Zorzi on Rio dei Greci. The crowning fiore, the thin oucer frame of scone and che two paterae are ali typical of che early and mid-q11attroce11to.

che Cà d'Oro was constructed. 3 But further enrichments were gradually added to the principal façade; discs of rare marbles were applied as paterae to the wall surfaces; the windows themselves were surrounded by a narrow outer frame of stone; balconies were added to the smaller, single windows; rope-mouldings and miniature columns were added to the quoins. And the great centrai window which lit the great hall on the piano nobile becamc the dominant feature of the façade, more carefully detailed than any other element. Most mature gothic façades are broadly symmetrical; in the centre of the ground floor was a large single porta], the water-gate giving access to the a11dro11e and the merchant's Jòntego. It was usually flanked by two pairs of small windows lighting the rooms on each side of the androne; they were generally heavily barred, for security. Directly above the water-gate was the large multi-light window giving as much light as possible to the great hall; it often extended for the full width and height of the pòrtego. This great window was again usually flanked by pairs of single lights, often very tali, and these indicate che location of the two important rooms on each side of the pòrtego, and which were the principal living rooms. Many palaces were now built with a third storey (and occasionally a fourth) above this piano nobile. If there was a second piano nobile, it was detailed in a very similar manner to the first, although it was often slightly lower. The 3

Arslan [ ·e11ezia Gotica pp.225 et seq.

PARTII THE CONTARINI CASADA

In the next seven chapters, a sketch will be drawn of the family that was to build the palace. le can only be a sketch, since the surviving background documencs are few in number, and chere are many aspects of this large and extremely complex clan that cannoc yec be linked cogether to form a more complete picture. Nevertheless, we can learn something of the background and mocives thac led to the construction of the House of Gold.

Marco Zeno, Cavalier, Procurator ofS. Marco de Ultra 1391

Marin Contarini ofSan Moisè

Alban Badoer Procurator of S. Marco de Citra 1423

Guglielmo

I

Andrea

Zuane

Marin Contarini of S. Felice & S. Sofia b. 1386 d. 1441

Simone Giovanni Antonio Ambrogio Badoer

orzi Corner

I I

Lucia -Marietta ----------- m 1458

Pietro Marcello -- tn --

I

Bachalario Zeno - m - Andreola ofS. Sofia d. before 1412

Antonio Contarini ofS. Moisè & S. Felice b.c. 1360 d. 1438 Procurator ofS. Marco de Ultra 1414

h

Lucia b.c. 1459

111

j

111

---

�

-

1406

Lunardo b.c. 1412

Soradamor

Maria

b.c. 1414

Caterina -

111 -

Leonardo Dandolo ofS. Luca Procurator ofS. Marco de Ultra 1382

Fantin, doctor oflaw

Piero, doctor oflaw

Sairunaritana b.c. 1415

Piero b. 1437 d. 1464

Contarena b.c. 1460 The Contarini ofS. Felice and S.Sofia: simplified genealogica! table

4 The Contarini: a great patrician clan

' Virtus Sola Est Atque Unica Nobilitas': the famii y motto of the Contarini

The story of the building of the Cà d'Oro bcgins not with Marin Contarini but his father Antonio. Antonio was born in about 1355 or 1360 into one ofthe most ancient noble clans of the Republic; so far, we know little ofhis politica[ career, although it was to be an illustrious one, crowned by high office. The Contarini casada or clan wàs among che most prominent and powerful of the noble houses. Among their earlier achievem.ents, they could boast three doges, the most recent being Andrea (ruled 1368-82), who had become a truly national hero with his victory over Genoa and the relief of Chioggia in 1379-80. The casada had also produced no less than seven Procurators ofSan Marco, and two patriarchs, as well as bishops and senators. Indeed, research has suggested that in the later fourteenth century thc clan held more high-ranking posts than any other ofthe 150 noble families that formed the body politic ofthe Most Serene Republic. 1 This predominance broadly continued into the qllaftrocento, with further Procurators, ambassadors and doctors of law. One reason for this ubiquity was simply that the clan was so numerous. In the government survey or estimo that was undertaken in I 379, no fewer than 68 heads of household were recorded, most ofwhom (eleven were women) would have become eligible to participate in che government of the Republic. It was not a family, nor even a large extended family, but rather a collection of families, with around a dozen quite distinct branches. 2 Some were not relateci at ali, other than by remote ancestry, while others were as dose as cousins. A century later, when Marin Sanudo compiled his 'handbook ' to the city and ics government in I 512, 3 he still listed 38 adult male heads ofhousehold. Most lived in the capitai itself, although others were serving abroad in embassies or on trading missions or, indeed, were permanently resident abroad in one of the Republic's overseas colonies. Marin himself had dose connections with a branch resident in Crete. The 1379 estimo provides us with the earliest (although partial) picture of patrician wealth in the city. Ics purpose was to record the assets of ali prominent families, including leading 1 S. Chojnacki 'In Search '. pp.+7-90. Scc note I above. Scc also G. Luzzatto Storia Eco110111ica di Venezia dal/'XI al XVI Secolo (Venicc 1961). 3 This is the sccond of rhc two 'handbooks' cditcd and published as La Città di Ve11eria. Thc lise of Contarini is on p. 203; che originai MS is Cod. Cicogna 970 in Bibl. Correr, Venicc, with the lise on c.66.

2

23

THE HOUSE OF GOLD

.....t

5 Venetian patricians: detail from Vettor Carpaccio's Reception of the Ambassadors; Sant'Orsola Cycle; Venicc, Accademia, c. 1495.

cittadini, to determine their ability to contribute towards the war against Genoa. Months after its completion, the war culminateci in the siege and victory of Chioggia. W e can trace Antonio Contarini in the survey, since his own father was also named Marin, and he then lived in the parish of San Moisè, where his claimed real wealth was filed as 2,000 lire di grossi. This is not a particularly large sum for the father of the man who was to build the Cà d'Oro, although this expensive project was still a long way in the future. An analysis of the listed wealth of all 68 adult Contarini indicates that the tota] for the casada was about 288,000 lire di grossi, giving an average of some 4200 lire per head. So Antonio's wealth at this stage was barely half the clan's average. The casada was fairly well scattered over many of the city's more centrai parishes, although there was a large concentration at San Silvestro (19 names) and another at Santi Apostoli (15 names). As with some of the other very numerous casade, the greatest wealth was concentrateci in only a few hands, and the richest 13 names accounted for exactly half of the clan's total. The wealthiest of all was Bertuccia of San Silvestro, with 25 ,ooo lire di grossi, while the incumbent doge, Andrea, declared 14,000 lire, his own branch being

THE CONTARINI: A GREAT PATRICIAN CLAN

25

based atSan Paternian. The second wealthiest was another Marin, son ofNicolò (ofSan Luca), with 18,500 lire. 4 But more valuable for our purposes are two Contarini who lived at San Felice, where Antonio himself moved at some time after 13 So, and where he was certainly residenc by the end of the century. One of these two was Michiel (son of Nicolò), with ro,ooo lire, and the other was Zanin and his brothers, whose father's name is not given, and who also declared 10,000 lire. It seems likely that two conclusions may be drawn from these rather sparse facts: firstly that Antonio made his fortunes during the period of reconstruction after 13 So. He was in any case only in his early twenties when the estimo was carried out, and was thus around forty at the cencury's end. This is certainly the age at which we would expect his career to develop and prosper, since he had clearly inherited only a modest estate from his own father. It also seems very likely that Antonio was relateci in some way to one or both of the other Contarini already living at San Felice in 1380, and that he moved there for family reasons. Perhaps they were cousins; perhaps he inherited property in the parish. San Felice is a particularly small one in its lanci area, and the possibility of it housing three sizeable Contarini palazzi on this small triangle of land (which also had to accommodate the church, its campanile and the parish campo, as well as Matteo Raverti's stone-yard) is a little unlikely. If this was indeed the case, then Antonio's move may well have been accompanied by a further increase in his own wealth, since both branches resident there in 13 So were a good dea] richer than he had been himself. 5 Tassini records a further interesting aspect of the Michele Contarini already living at San Felice; his daughter Maddalena was married to Luchino Novello Visconti, who had retired to Venice from Milan after his mother had been condemned to death. On Visconci's own death in 1399 (in Michele's house), he left the impressive sum of 12,000 florins to the Procurators of San Marco to fund various good works. Michele's palazzo was locateci near the church and the 'Ponte Noal ' (Ponte Pasqualigo). 6

Antonio Contarini of San Felice By 1400 Antonio was resident in his new home, a parish on the north bank of the Grand Canal, a few hundred metres north-west of the Rialto Bridge. 7 The parish was small, occupying a single islet, triangular in shape, and bounded by a short frontage to the Grand Canal. On one long side it was bounded by the Rio di San Felice and down the other ran the Rio di Noale. The latter was wider, and formed an important element in the lagunar communications network, since it lay on the shortest route between Rialto and the islands of the northern ' The 1379 estimo must be used with calltion since only real property was valucd. Luzzana has suggested rhat a multiplier of around four should be applied ro encompass wealrh of ali kinds: Storia Econv,nica p. r 41; see also Chojnacki 'In Scarch' p.60. I am mosr grareful ro Prof. Donald Queller for allowing me access to a drafr ofhis papcr 'The Venctian Family and the Estimo of 1379', rogether with his computer analysis ofthe data thcrein. The above conclusions are my own, but based on his analyscs. 5 lt was, ofcoursc, comrnon practice to have business ties berween branches of a casada, notably between brothers and betwcen first cousins. Such partnerships were sometimes permanent and sornctimes of short duration. See Chojnacki 'In Scarch ', passi111: F. C. Lane Andrea Barbarigo, Merchant ofVenice 1418-1449 (Baltimore and London 1944); Lane Venice; and F. C. Lane 'Family Partnerships and Joint Ventures' in Vrnice and History: rhe Collected Papers of Frederic C. Lane (13alrimore 1966). 6 G. Tassini Curiosità Veneziane 9th edn (Vcnice 1988) p. 235. 7 Antonio Contarini's will has survived (A.S.V. Proc. di San Marco de Citra B.269); it is dared 13 Aprii 1400, and in it he is described as rcsident in rhe parish ofSan Felice. Hc may evcn havc draftcd it to take account ofhis ncwly acquired assets thcre.

26

THE IIOUSE OF GOLD

-·----

r r:,

6 Rialto and Santa Sofia: detail of de'Barbari's view of r 500. Key to numbers: I The Cà d'Oro; II S.Sofia; III SS.Apostoli; IV The Madonna dell'Orto; V The Scuola Vecchia della Misericordia; VI S.Felice; VII The Pescheria.

THE CONTARIN!: A GREAT PATRICIAN CLAN

27

lagoon, firstly San Michele and Murano, and thence to Torcello, Burano and their various satellites. The Rio di Noale was thus a busy waterway, as it remains to this day. We cannot identify Antonio's house today with certainty, and the only substantial Contarini property in the parish is the much later Contarini-Pisani palazzo on the Grand Canal, which was built in the seventeenth century. A gothic house on Rio di San Felice bears the family arms but is by no means a palazzo, and was probably simply another house in their ownership. However, it is clear from de'Barbari that there was a substantial medieval house on the site later occupied by the rebuilt Contarini-Pisani house, and this appears to be a more appropriate dwelling for a man of the stature of Marin's father. Like its successor, this earlier palazzo had a spacious colonnade onto the Grand Canal, and ifthis is indeed Antonio's house, it is not ,oo fanciful to see this arcade as a possible source for his son, when he carne to build the equally broad colonnade on his new house at Santa Sofia. Above this arcade, the palazzo at San Felice had two piani nobili, and above them was a low attic of rooms for servants and kitchens. It was a substantial house, therefore, certainly sufficient for the headquarters of Antonio's branch of the clan, and it seems to have extended back as far as the little campo that then lay in front of the church. A very weatherbeaten stemma above a medieval doorway opposite the church is probably that of thc Contarini, and thus represents the originai land­ entrance of the house. 8 Among their other patrician neighbours, Antonio and his sons could count another quite distinct branch of their own casada, the Contarini dal Zaffo, who owned houses towards the Misericordia. More prominent in this zone, though, were the Zeno, who owned a group of houses near Santa Caterina and Santa Sofia, and into which family Marin was to marry. Antonio's first son, Marin was born in 1386, when Antonio was probably in his mid­ twenties and already almost certainly in pursuit of his politica! career at San Marco. We know almost nothing of Marin's early !ife, although he had three brothers, Zuane, Andrea and Guglielmo, and perhaps sisters as well. He would certainly have been educateci from a very early age into the two ròles that he was expected to play in life: that of an active participant in the government ofthe Republic, and that ofbusinessman and international trader. Certainly by 1425 (and perhaps earlier) Marin was eligible to participate directly in the government process by voting at sessions ofthe Maggior Consiglio, the great council forming the base of the many-layered pyramid of power that had the doge at its apex. 9 By the time of Marin's betrothal in 1406 at the age of twenty, his father had built up a fairly significant politica! career, as well as a substantial business network, to which Marin and his brothers would succeed. The most important components of this network were international dealing in wool, cloth and fine fabrics, although Marin's own dealings were to vary widely . 10 The Zeno, the other patrician family that was to be joined by marriage to the Contarini, were almost certainly well known to both Antonio and his son. They were another casa vecchia or 'long' family, and Marin's bride's father was an almost exact contemporary 8 The style of che house shown by de'Barbari is not clear, although it is possible that che canal-side loggia was 13yzantine rathcr than gothic. The parish church is of ancient origin, alchough che church that Antonio knew seems to have been a largely thirteenth-century structure, with a squarc, stocky ca111pa11ile nearby. The present church is of che 1530s and of Codussian derivation, although che architect is unknown. 9 Forche r6le ofthe younger nobilicy inche Maggior Consiglio, sec S. Chojnacki 'li Raggiungimento della Maggiore Età Politica a Venezia nel X V Secolo' in Ricerche Ve11ete I (Venice 1989); this is a new ltalian translation of a paper originally publishcd as 'Politica! Adulthood in Fifteenth-Ccntury Venice '; A111erica11 Hisrorical Review, 91 / 4 (1986). 10 Sec below, Chapter 7.

28

THE HOUSE OF GOLD

of his own. Indeed, the two clans were virtually neighbours, since the principal Zeno palazzo was in the next parish of Santa Sofia, only a hundred metres or so further east. It was certainly the case that the marriage was one of convenience, of the fusing together of two honourable case vecchie for mutual self-interest, but it may also have been a marriage of attraction as well, of two young nobles who may have perhaps known each other since childhood. 11 11 The fathers of Marin and his wife would have met in the Palazzo Ducale virtually every week, of course, notably on Sundays, when the Maggior Consiglio met.

5 Marin and his marriage

... per la chasa granda de s.sophia siano dadi per affictu a madona soradamor due. 75 doro per miss. marin conatrini ]acta [da] antonio di vararijs ... (From the lease on the Zeno palace, dateci 22 September 1407) 1

Soradamor Zeno, like Marin, bore an ancient and illustrious name. The Zeno were by no means as numerous, ubiquitous or powerful as the Contarini, but they were a distinguished clan with severa! famous figures in their lineage. The Zeno had only occupied the thirty­ fourth position in terms ofoverall wealth in the 1379 estimo, although since they were far less numerous than the Contarini, this does not mean that the few adult male Zeno were individually poor. The casada had also produced a respectable number of senior public servants in the past including one doge and five Procurators of San Marco, one of whom was Soradamor's grandfather, Marco. 2 But the most justly celebrateci member of the clan was undoubtedly Carlo Zeno, the great sea-captain who had helped to defeat the Genoese at Chioggia in 1380; he had made the most vita! contribution to the very survival ofthe Republic. We will recali that the doge at the time was a Contarini (Andrea), and thus, to their contemporaries, Marin's marriage to Soradamor may well have been seen - particularly by their parents - as the joining together of the two great case vecchie which between them had ensured Venice's triumphant survival a generation earlier. Soradamor's own father, Bachalario or Baralazio, does not seem to have had a particularly notable politica] career, but her grandfather had been a senior statesman, honoured with the title of Cavalier; 3 he was himselfa contemporary ofMarin's own grandfather, also christened Marin. Marco Zeno was elected a Procurator of San Marco in 1391, the climax of a long, successful career in the service ofthe state. 4 His son, Soradamor's father, must have dieci while stili fairly young, perhaps in his late thirties or early forties, which helps to explain why he did not achieve high office himself. Indeed, Bachalario dici not live to see the marriage ofhis daughter - his second daughter, in fact - to Antonio's eldest son. And so in 1406 Soradamor was represented not by her father but by a man named Piero Zen Dandolo,5 who was her elder sister's brother-in-law. Soradamor's sister was named Caterina, and she had already been married to Fantin Dandolo, a young 1

A. S. V. Proc. di San Marco de Citra B.269 bis; unmarked bundle, doc.5. ' See Queller 'The Vcnetian Family'; Chojnacki 'In Search'; Luzzatto Storia Economica; F. Sansovino, G. Stringa, G. Martinioni Veneria Città Nobilissima et Singolare; (Venice 1663; new facsimile edn Venice 1968), Voi., pp.299-305. 4 3 lbid. II 'Cronico Veneto' p.42. Sansovino et al., ibid. II 'Catalogo de i Senatori .. .'. ; A. S. V. Proc. di San Marco de Citra B.269 bis; unmarked bundle, doc.2.

29

30

THE HOUSE OF GOLD

member of yet another illustrious casa vecchia, and it was almost certainly Fantin and his brother Piero (both of them bearing the title of doctors oflaw from Padua University), who had brought Soradamor up after the death of her father. 6 They thus became her lega! guardians and representatives, as is confirmed by the nuptial contract. Fantin Dandolo was himself the son of yet another important public figure, Leonardo Dandolo of San Luca; this Leonardo was a contemporary of the grandfathers of both Marin and Soradamor and, like Marco Zeno, Leonardo was elected a Procurator of San Marco in I 3 82, some ten years before Zeno. 7 And so, in the cases of all three of these important case vecchie, Zeno, Contarini and Dandolo, we find older generations whose members had reached the very highest levels of power and patronage in che government ofthe Republic. Closely relateci by marriage as they were, these three casade, or ac least certain branches of them, formed a potentially highly influential bloc of votes and of influence in the affairs of government. We know rather more of Soradamor's mother Andreola than of her father; Andreola survived her husband's early death by at least a decade, and later took holy orders. She is recorded in 1417 as being a nun in the convent and ospizio of Sant' Andrea della Zirada (part of which survives today behind Piazzale Roma), and it is very likely that she took her vows after 1406, once her second daughter had been successfully married, and once the matter ofthe family's house at Santa Sofia had also been at least partly resolved. 8 Bachalario Zeno seems to have left only two surviving children, his daughters Caterina and Soradamor. For this reason, on his death the ownership of the house passed to Caterina and her husband Fantin Dandolo, with his brother Piero having a further interest. I� the summer of 1406, Marin and Soradamor were betrothed. 9 And in September 1407, just over a year later, Marin had successfully negotiated with Fantin and Piero an agreement to rent the palazzo at Santa Sofia for 7 5 ducats a year. 10 This contract was finalized after reference to the Zudesi de Petition, and the latter duly registered the agreement on 22 September. It is not clear where Caterina and her Dandolo in-laws were living at this time, although che Dandolo had cheir own family seat at San Luca, while the Zeno also owned property at Santa Caterina. By law, rental agreements like this one could not run for more than five years, 11 and so new arrangements would have to have been made on its expiry in 1412. In fact, we have no further detailed information on either Marin or Soradamor (or indeed of her family) during this period. It is apparent from later records thac Marin's wife was to bear him thre� children, a son Lunardo and two daughters, Maria and Sammaricana, but we have no dates for their births. All we can conclude, therefore, from this losc period, is that Marin, Soradamor and possibly other members ofhis family shared the large palazzo on the Grand Canal, while his own plans perhaps began to take shape in his mind. When Contarini married he was 20; when we next meet him in detailed records he is 26, and it is thus almost inevitable that in this most important period ofhis development, his ideas for the future ofthe house were developed further. The Zeno house was old, but it was large, spacious and apparently richly decorateci; a decision to take it down and rebuild it was one of considerable importance, particularly given the resultant disruption to domestic life for many years. The overall cost and long-term economie soundness of such a decision were, of course, of even greater importance. 6

Sansovino Venetia li p.577. lbid. Il 'Cronico Veneto' p-42. A. S. V. Proc. di San Marco di Citra B.269 bis; unmarked bundle, doc.8. 9 Ibid. doc.2. Piero Zen Dandolo actcd as Soradamor's guardian on this occasion. 11 Sanudo La Città (A. C. Aricò ed.) p.21. 8

111 lbid. doc.5.

6 Antonio Contarini, an ambitious father The Procuracy of San Marco: 'Questo magistrato è del/i primi daghi questa Terra alli più veterani, primi e benemeriti patritij' essercitadi per il stado ... ' (Marin Sanudo, 1493). 1

On St Stephen's Day 1413, doge Michele Steno had died at the age of 82. His successor was Tommaso Mocenigo, then 69, a popular choice, and whose election was much later described by Sansovino as 'gratissima, come di humo oltre modo desideroso della pace e di buona mente'.2 Mocenigo seems to have been a man ofdifferent temper from Steno, therefore, and he was indeed to reign for a decade during much of which the Republic was at peace. Antonio Contarini seems to have advanced his own career in the time-honoured manner, by making allies astutely, and one of these allies was doge Mocenigo. Antonio was still only around 5 5 when Mocenigo was elected, and in che Venetian gerontocracy was well-placed on grounds of age alone to be a suitable successor. He chose wisely. On 4 November 1414, only six months after Mocenigo had taken the throne, Antonio Contarini was elected a Procurator of San Marco. Sanudo's words cited above indicate the dignity and seniority of this promotion in the structure ofthe Serenissima. 3 Although the post ofProcurator had no direct remuneration, it was one ofgreat symbolic and indeed practical importance. Procurators were elected for life, the only posts with such tenure other than the dogeship itself. In protocol, too, they were the highest oflìces behind that ofthe head ofstate. In Contarini's time there were only six Procurators; two bore the suflìx de Supra, and were responsible for administering the properties of the state in and around Piazza San Marco, including the Palazzo Ducale, the shrine of San Marco itself, and other government structures such as the Mint. The other two pairs of Procurators, de Citra and de Ultra, were responsible for all remaining state property (as well as many other bequests and charities) respectively on'this' and'that' side ofthe Grand Canal, 'this side' being the side closest to San Marco. Election to any of these six posts was seen by many as a natural prelude to the ducal throne, and a fairly simple analysis shows that in the long period from the plague of 1348 to around 1500, all of the doges except three had been Procurators first.4 New Procurators were elected (naturally, only after one of their number had died) by a genera] universal ballot of the Maggior Consiglio, in which a clear majority was necessary; 5 1 2 4 5

Sanudo La Cirrà (A. C. Arico ed.), p.104 (Codice Cicogna no.969 c.50 in Bibl. Civico Correr). 3 Sansovino Veneria, Il p.575. lbid. Il 'Cronico Veneto', p.44. From an analysis based on Sansovino Ve11eria, parcicularly Voi., pp.299-305 and Vol.2 'Cronico Veneto'. Sanudo La Citrà, p. 104.

32

ANTONIO CONTARINI, AN AMBITIOUS FATHER

33

widespread popularity was thus a prerequisite for election, unlike many other senior posts which were either virtually nominateci or elected by a small group of senior politicians. So Contarini must have been a generally popular figure in the corridors of power. In November 1414 then, Antonio took charge of the Republic's and other interests in the three sestieri of San Polo, Santa Croce and Dorsoduro; he was immediately provided with a number of staff, induding a treasurer, an accountant, as well as specialist lawyers and three justices to deliver judgements in diffìcult cases. 6 One of the rather doubtful benefits of the Procuracy was the right to reside in one ofthe six apartments ofthe Procuratie, the block that filled much ofone ofthe sides of Piazza San Marco. Most ofthe available space in them would seem to have been occupied by staff, desks and the storage of the copious documents that accompanied the post. Certainly, by Sanudo's time, these apartments had acquired considerable notoriety as being old, draughty and uncomfortable, which is indeed why they were finally demolished and rebuilt in the 1490s, in broadly the form that we see today, although at first with only one upper storey. The apartments were old, though, even in Antonio's day, and it is diffìcult to imagine that he would have abandoned his family seat at San Felice to reside permanently on the Piazza; more likely, he simply used the apartment as bis Procuratorial offìces. By now, bis son Marin was 28, and his future must have seemed very secure. He had a wealtby father installed in a post of great honour and prestige at San Marco, with a strong possibility ofone day succeeding to the supreme position ofbead ofstate; he had a young wife who had borne bim three cbildren; and he had acquired a large, if rather elderly palace on the Grand Canal, wbich he was intending to rebuild (with his fatber's support) as a ba�e for his own, new branch of tbe Contarini casada. However, like the later career of his father, Marin's future was not to be quite as straightforward. Only three years after Antonio's election to the Procuracy, Soradamor dieci, in the spring of 1417. We have no details of the manner ofher deatb- it may well bave been in cbildbirtb- but her will bas survived, and contains several points ofinterest. 7 Her executrix was Giovanna Dandolo, the prioress of the nunnery of Sant' Andrea della Zirada, tbe bouse wbere Soradamor's own motber bad taken holy orders after tbe death ofber fatber. Giovanna Dandolo was herself a dose relative of Soradamor's own in-laws; we cannot estabiish tbe precise relationship, but once again we see bere furtber evidence of the dose, complex interconnections between tbe Contarini, Zeno and Dandolo. Soradamor's will was drafted by Enrico Saloman, tbe pleban of the adjacent parish of Santa Fosca; most of her cash assets were distributed among various cbaritable and other worthy causes in tbe manner typical of the time. Several religious houses received money so that masses could be said 'pro anema sua ', wbile ber brotber-in-law Fantin was left tbe slightly more substantial sum of roo ducats, and was charged with administering a bequest for his own brotber, who was perhaps abroad. Giovanna herself was left a modest five ducats for masses to be conducted at Sant'Andrea. So Marin was already a widower at tbe age of 29, with a son, Lunardo, and two small daughters. There was little diffìculty in bringing up the children, given the domestic arrangements of the day, and tbe dose interconnection between tbe three noble casade gave ample opportunity for Maria and Sammaritana to bave been looked after. Lunardo, ofcourse, was brought up by bis father. We have no accurate dates for the birth of these cbildren, but 6 lbid., pp. 104-5. Sanudo's summary of the functions of aU of these government magistracies and offices is invaluable, and his account of the Procuracy particularly comprehensive. The Procurators' staff are described thus: 'Hanno tre zudesi a loro diputati, sentano ogni mattina a San Marco ... et hanno avochati per loro salariati.' They were also provided with 'gastaldi, masscri, et cancellieri, non hanno alcun superior veder li soi conci; in le sue Procuratie son tre et cadaun cien una chiave'. A.S.V. Proc. di San Marco de Citra B.269 bis.; unmarked bundle, doc.8.

34

THE I IOUSE OF GOLD

later records suggest that Lunardo was born in about 1411 or 1412, and Marin's daughters in or 1415.8 A vita! element in our own story, though, in these years is the r6lc of Antonio, not only in supporting Marin in the initial purchase of the Zeno palazzo, but also in the decision to rebuild it. When Marin had fìrst begun to rent the house, newly betrothed and only 21, he could have had little direct knowledge of the processes involved in such a venture, and must have sought Antonio's advice and authorization. Although the building accounts give the impression that Marin alone was responsible for every aspect of the new work, fundamental decisions were certainly made either directly by Antonio or were referred to him by Marin for his authorization and 'blessing '. W e must remember the r6le of the hcad of the casada in the social structures of the time. Antonio was indeed a patriarch, a figure to whom all of his family had to give considerable respect. The head of a casada often retained financial contro! over the activities of his sons even when they were adults, and particularly if they still lived under his roof. 9 Marin was certainly stil! a junior partner in the business affairs of the clan, although he would have been trained by Antonio to take control in due course. Antonio was therefore a powerful politician at San Marco but also a powerful family figurehead; not only would he !uve underwritten the purchase of che Zeno house but also, for a time at least, he took some interest in the progress of the works on site. 10 However, this direct interesc seems to have waned after a year or two; thenceforth it was Marin alone who drafted contraccs and paid che craftsmen every week. And it was certainly Marin alone whose involvement with the development of the house became such a preoccupation, almost an obsession, over many years. It is probably unrealistic to conclude that Antonio would have had time (with al! his Procuratoria! and business duties) for any interest other than a broad financial one, and perhaps one that vetted important new aspects of the house's appearance and their concomitant cost. Marin's own personality continued to grow and develop as the work on site developed, and undoubtedly his own confidence in his ability to organize the building works also increased with his direct experience of the process. Nevertheless, behind the whole enterprise stood the important figure of Antonio Concarini. Throughout the years after Mocenigo's election to the duca! throne, and Antonio's to the Procuracy, the latter must !uve been waiting in the wings in anticipation of his possible election - one day- as Mocenigo's successor. During che decade of his reign, it seems likely that Concarini cultivated his rapport with Mocenigo with the hopc and intention that it should bear fruit. This decade covered the period in which Marin grew to the age of 3 8; it is also che vita! period in which the fìrst works for the new palace were begun. Shortly before his death, Mocenigo suggested to the Signoria the names of five or six men whom he considered suitable as his successor, as the worthy inheritor of his legacy and his politics. Among the six were Francesco Bembo, Giacomo Trevisan, and two other names of more than passing interest. One was Alban Badoer, who had been elected a Procurator in 1423, only ten days before Foscari carne to the throne. Badoer was the grandfather of 1414

8 Contarini's daughters may have been twins; latcr. hc bought identica! clothes for thcm whrn asscmbling thcir wcdding-chests: see below, pp ..p-2. 9 Scc, for example, Lane A11drea Barbarigo: I. Origo T/1e .\Jercha111 of Prato (London 1957); Lane Ve11ice a11d History. Marin Contarini was certainly emancipateci when work on the Cà d'Oro bcgan, and indccd had probably been emancipateci in qo6; nevenheless, although hc was free to enter into such contracts as that for the purchasc of thc Zeno housc and its rcbuilding. in practical tcrms it seems very likely that his father remained the dominant partner in their business affairs. and thus indirectly still exerted considerable contro! ovcr Marin. Scc also uscful notes on father and son rclationships and partncrships in S. Conncll T/1e E111ploy111e111 of"Srnlp1ors a11d S1,me111aso11s i11 I 'e11ice i11 the i'i{tee111/, Cm111ry (London and New York 1988). pp.36-42. 10 although mostly relating to craftsmen. See, for example. references in L.[11 C. I.

ANTONIO CONTARINI, AN AMBITIOUS FATHER

35

7 Portrait of doge Francesco Foscari by Lazzaro Bastiani: Venice, Musco Civico Correr.

Marietta, who in due course was to marry Marin Contarini's sccond son Piero, whom we will meet again in our concluding chapter. The last name on the list was Antonio Contarini. 11 Mocenigo's lobbying in favour ofhis own group oflike-minded patricians was spirited and undiluted; he even went so far as to refer to the 'new ' contender, Francesco Foscari, as 'a vainglorious braggart, vapid and light-headed '.12 The atmosphere prior to the election was thus highly charged, and the result unexpected by many in the Signoria; the Mocenigo faction was soundly defeated by the new man, Francesco Foscari. Antonio Contarini would have been a fairly young doge at around 65, bue Foscari was more than a decade younger stili; at only fifty, he was the second youngest man ever to succeed to the ducal throne. 13 He was also a member of che case nuove, che' short' families, only che third such member to be elected to the supreme office. Antonio Contarini's hopes ofthe ducal com.o were thus over, at least for a time. In che evenc, Foscari was to set further records with a reign of no less than 34 years, the longest in the Republic's history, and neither Contarini nor any of Mocenigo's other favourites lived to 11

12

13

For Badocr's clcction as Prornrator, see Sansovino Venetia Voi. T pp.299-305 and Vol.2 Cronico Veneto, P++· Parts of Moccnigo's speech are citcd in recent, acccssible forni in Norwich Veniee: The Crea/lless pp.42 3. See note 11 above. Mocenigo continued by warning that 'lfhe rFoscari] bccomcs doge, you will find yoursclvcs conscantly at war; he who now has ccn thousand ducaes will be reduccd to onc chousand; he who posscsscs cwo houscs will no longer have one; you will wasce, with your gold and silvcr, your honour and your reputation.' According to Sansovino ( Ve11eria, Vol.2 p.565). Pietro Cradenigo was only 38 whcn hc was clecred doge in 1288.

36

THE HOUSE OF GOLD

succeed him. Contarini naturally retained the Procuracy until his death, but he now had to be content with his business activities and the status of his own office. For our own purposes, therefore, in discussing the building of the new palace, the most important years are those immediately before 1423. This was the period in which Antonio saw himself as a possible future doge, and in which he encouraged his eldest son with his plans to build a new palace that would be a fitting home for a doge's family.

7 Contarini' s business . . . act1v1t1es mazo 1422 per la barcha dj andreolo da crernona balle 4 dj piera da grana, conto piere 960 le qual mandè a rigo di petrogna che me le vendesse ... (Marin Contarini, 2 May 1422 (LIII c. 1))

2

The Contarini business empire was wide and scattered. Although few detailed records survive, it is also clear that the business range of Antonio and Marin was equally broad. The family owned property in the city itself, particularly near Rialto, and on the Terraferma, at Mestre, Noale and Castelfranco. 1 Within the city, too, a fragment dateci 1434 refers to a number of cottages that Marin owned; they consisted of two groups, one of fourteen, and the other of eleven. The first were all rented out at 3½ ducats each per year, while the others yielded four ducats each. But the total combined income of 93 ducats was only a very small part indeed of the total wealth of the family. 2 Among the more substantial properties, we know of a collection of furnaces near Padua, which normally seem to have been used for the production of glass. This was clearly a commercial establishment of some size, although we cannot gauge the ròle that it played in the family's overall income. 3 The key to the Contarini wealth seems to have lain in two areas, both of them characteristic fields of trade for the Venetian patriciate: spices and cloth. In the medieval sense, of course, the former term embraced a much broader range of goods than those known as spices today, and included almost all specialized goods of fairly high value and comparatively small bulk, which were imported into Venice from many parts of the world, chiefly from the Middle East, north Africa, and centra! Asia as far as India. We may mention just two commodities in which Marin dealt; there may well have been dozens of others. The first was a substance called grana, which was not a grain crop (nor a cheese) but a small insect rather like a bug or louse, indigenous to various zones bordering the Mediterranean, particularly Spain and the Morea. The reason for trading in such an unlikely commodity was that the bug was dried and powdered and then used as a dye for colouring fabrics. The range consisted chiefly of reds and purples, which were particularly highly regarded, and so grana was a valuable traded 'spice '. Marin dealt in grana in 1420, 1421 and 1428; unfortunately, few of the records are priced, although the quantities involved were fairly small; grana was sold by the pound weight, and Marin generally sold in lots of five or ten pounds at a time to dyers in the city. 4 1 2 3

4

For a brief discussion of Piero"s estate, in which thcsc properties are mcntioned, see below, p.252. A.S.V. Proc. di San Marco de Cirra B.269 bis.; bundle marked '1419-59 '. See below, p.197. At one stage these fornaci produced a large quantity of lime for the construction of rhe Cà d'Oro. LIII c.4; LIV c.4t., c.7r and 8.

37

38

THE HOUSE OF GOLD

His second 'spice ' also scems a trifle esoteric today, although it was something of a staple of medieval tracie, and that was balsam, universally used as a balm for healing wounds and soothing pain. Marin traded in balsam in the form ofmyrobalans, che fruit of the tree from which balsam is obtained. These myrobalans were then processed to form a resin which could then be cast into moulds to form blocks that could be easily handled and transported. In March 1440, Marin had acquired a large shipment ofpiere (blocks) ofresin which he then apparently found it difficult to sei!. Therc were more than a thousand of them, and he first had them shipped in the vessel ofAntonio di Marco in the hope ofselling them at the 'fiera di lanazanij '; in this he was unsuccessful, so he had them ali re-shipped and then taken overland to Ascoli. We do not know whether he finally managed to dispose of them at a reasonable profit; the matter is of interest, though, as it was one of Marin's very last business ventures. Indeed, he may not have lived to see the dea! concluded. 5 Contarini's business activities were broadly spread; in 1426 we find him partly involved in his brother Zuane's extensive dealings in copper, an importane metal much used in che arms industry, as well as for many domestic purposes, such as cooking utensils. 6 In wholesale form, it was traded in small ingots, some weighing only a pound each, but which were worth r I lire a pound. In the course ofthree transactions in che winter of 1425-6, the two brothers dealt in more than 7 50 lbs of copper, worth over L.8000 in turnover. Bue the real staple of the family's incarne was almost certainly tracie in cloth and other fabrics. We bave a small collection ofpapers fromjust one trading year, 1425, which gives at least a glimpse of the scale and extent of this tracie. One fragment lists the amount of cloth currently in stock in Marin's Jòntego; there were 42 complete bolts of fabric, each one on average 150 feet long, and their tota! value was in che order of I 1,000 lire di piccoli. At this time, much of Marin's overseas tracie was with severa[ companies based in Crete. The principal of one ofthem, with his brother Nicolò, was a Venetian nobleman, Vetor Diedo; both lived at Castel Bonifazio, and worked with an agent or factor, Zorzi Dolfin, resident in the capitai, Candia (Eraklion). But Contarini also dealt with many other traders there, among them Jacopo and Lazaro Balbo, both of Candia; Marco Venier; and a locai dealer called Sabati di Sabateo. There was yet another group at Borgo di Candia, who included Bortolomio Zeno and his brother, perhaps relateci to Marin's late wife. Contarini dealt with every one ofthese merchants and agents in the space of a few months; much of the business, though, was conducted via his brother Zuane, who at this time was resident at Candia, together with his young cousin Troilo. 7 An insight into the pivotai raie that Marin played in this busy exchange ofcommerce across the Mediterranean is offered in the summer of r 426, just after ali the dealings noted above. In July, Marin's brother Zuane dieci in Candia, and Marin wrote onc of the very few persona[ letters that bave survived in this collection. He wrote to young Troilo, naturally expressing his own sadness at the loss and sending condolences to che young man. He then gave Troilo detailed instructions not to return to the capitai (which he wanted to do) but to stay in Candia and continue as temporary manager of the company there. Troilo was also charged with ensuring that ali the other staff ofthe company remained there, where they were to continue dealing in 'pani da padoa ' (Paduan cloth) and 'scharlatin '. 8 Marin's cloth business was by no means confined to tracie with Candia, though, and in the 5

L.IV c.67t. Contarini may wcll havc been scriously ili when thesc records were made; his handwriting is extrcmely shaky and 6 uncerrain. L.IV c.12t. Ali ofrhc above references are found in A.S.V. Proc. di San Marco de Citra B.269 bis and 270, in particular in the rwo bundlcs 8 marked 'q19-59' and 'scc.XV '. None of the papers is numbcred. The lerrer to Troilo is fìled loosed in L. 1.

CONTARINI'S BUSINESS ACTIVITIES

.

39

------

�-

---,I

8 Venetian shipping: trading vessels moorcd in the Bacino, from dc'Barbari's view of 1500.

same year again, we have records of purchases of cloth from Parma, Florence and Padua, and scarlet cloth from Rame. Further fabrics arrived from Como, and Contarini also bought 57 bolts of fabric locally made in Venice itself. 9 The regular sailings of the galleys to both Beirut and Alexandria called at Candia, ensuring a fairly frequent, reliable service. In the other direction entirely, there were sailings to Flanders via the long route through the Straits of Gibraltar and Biscay. Marin made use of these viazij as well, as we see from yet another record from 1425. In October, he paid a considerable sum far the making of no less than 468 barrels or casks (' some large and some small'), which were destined far the hold of the 'nave balba', a galley on the Flanders run. Contarini must have acquired an interest in this vessel, and paying far cooperage was his contribution towards the cast of the voyage. The work of the botaro (cooper) was supervised by Marin's brother Zuane, who at this stage was still in Venice, befare hisjourney to Crete. Marin had to pay not only far cooperage but also the rent on two warehouses where the casks were to be stored between voyages. 10 Storage was, of course, a perennial problem in the city, and on several occasions Marin had to rent 1nagazeni elscwhere to stare his own traded goods, a situation that was exacerbatcd by the long period of construction of his new palace. Thus, on 5 September 1424, he began renting warehouse space at 'Cà Corner' far r8 ducats a year.11 These fragmentary records give us only a general impression of the nature and extent of Contarini's business activities. He must also have made extensive use of the banking facilities " A.S.V. Proc. di San Marco de Citra B.269 bis and 270: bundle markcd 'scc.XV'. 11 L J lbid., bundlc marked '1419-59'. . V c.12t.

10

THE HOUSE OF GOLD

ofRialto, although the only detail we have is ofsome dealings with che bank ofBernardo Polo and his family in 1429 and the early 1430s. One final aspect of tracie deserves a passing mention, and that is tracie in slaves. Dealing in slaves was a long-established fact oflife in medieval Venice, although the peak was already past by the early 1400s. Nevertheless, Venice remained an importane centre for this human commerce, and we know that Marin bought at least one slave as his persona] servant. He was a young man named Martin, whom Contarini purchased on 16 March 1423 from Domeneco, a member of yet another branch of che Contarini clan. The dea! was struck at Rialto for 50 ducats, at the bank of Nicolò Cocco and Antonio Morosini. But whether Marin traded m slaves on a commerciai basis we do not know. 12 12 A.S.V. Proc. di San Marco de Citra B.269 bis; misc.fragments no.7. See also Lane Venice, pp.51, 103, 129, 206, 332-3. For Fiorentine comparisons, see Origo The Mercha11r pp.99-102, 195-202.

8 A domestic interlude · family and servants 1426-1430

1427 adj 31 di fever in veniesia: quj noterò tute spese menudU per fare per me zoè maria e

sammaritana per so st1effie ... (Marin Contarini: LIV c.3ot)

cattered among Contarini's weekly details ofpayments to the masons and builders ofhis new palace, we find a handful of other accounts of a more domestic nature that shed a little light omo the everyday life of the household. In spring 1426, with work on the house well under way, Marin began to keep a register of ome ofhis household expenses, and this was continued - rather erratically - until early 1430. 1 The register is rather ambitiously headed 'herein I will record all of the minor expenses on my daughters, Maria and Sammaritana, for their fabrics ', and, in fact, nearl y all of these expenses do relate to his daughters, although there are a few for clothes for himself as well. Maria and Sammaritana were aged about twelve to fourteen when these notes begin, and chey give us a valuable insight into the sort of wardrobe that a patrician child of the time would have had. In the first year year, 1426, Marin spent almost 120 ducats on clothes for his daughters; in the next three years he began to accumulate more lavish fabrics, indicating the necessity to build up a suitable cassone as they approached marriageable age. But even in this firsc year, they were well provided with cloaks, dresses and shifts (camicie). 2 By February 1428, Marin had begun to purchase more luxurious fabrics for the girls' dowries, 'per mie fie ... per so maridar ', as he put it. The list of purchases for 1428 included a large number ofkerchiefs (fazoleti), some oflinen or simple cloth, while others were ofsilk and even cloth of gold; these last were all destined for the cassone. A single piece of cloth of gold cost three or four ducats, a month's wages to one of the craftsmen then working on Marin's new house, and even a small piece of silk cost 1½ ducats. In this acount alone, Marin bought chree camicie, six pieces of cloth of gold, eight kerchiefs of silk and cloth of gold, and severa! more ordinary lengths of fabric. The total bill was 70 ducats, or more than 3 50 lire. Many of che more luxurious fabrics were bought from 'le clone de le verzene ', the nuns of the Augustinian nunnery of the Virgin, near San Pietro di Castello, while the rest came from the 1 Ali of these details are in L.IV. See notes 2-5 bclow. 2 L.IV c.36t and 37. Some ofche fabric was bought from Zane Malipiero, a fellow-noble and was made up by Lanziloto, a loca! tailor.

41

42

THE HOUSE OF GOLD

nuns of San Salvador. The latter were paid on a regular monthly basis for nearly a year, and both houses clearly specialized in fine fabrics, chiefly no doubt for church vestments, but also for the wedding-chests of the nobility. 3 A further list, compiled a year or so later, included severa! purchases for Marin himself, including a fine pair of velvet gloves (at three ducats), and two pairs ofclogs or zoccoli. Most of the day-to-day dothes for Maria and Sammaritana were made up straight away by a locai tailor called Lanziloto, and in 1429 he was paid 49 lire for making up eight separate orders. 4 These bills continued to accumulate fairly regularly unti! February 1431; by the time that they cease, Contarini had spent more than 500 ducats (about 2500 lire) over a four-year period, most ofwhich was for the two girls' marriage-chests. This sum represented about ten years' income to a skilled craftsman of the time. 5 After 1431, we have no further details ofpurchases or indeed ofMaria or Sammaritana, who are now lost to our story. But what is revealing about these records (apart from their intrinsic interest) is the highly informai, almost random nature of these notes, scattered among Contarini's building accounts. Although he must have compiled other ledgers for domestic expenditure of many different kinds (food, clothes for himself and for Lunardo, servants' wages and so on), these notes give the strong impression that Marin was not the most scrupulously disciplined accountant that we might have expected to find in a man who had a complex international trading network to administer. And, indeed, this rather haphazard nature is revealed more and more clearly as we examine the progress in building the palace. The ròle of Lunardo For a period of two or three years, Marin's son played a minor but useful role in the administration of the building operations on site. Lunardo probably achieved adulthood in about 1428, and thereafter unti! the end of 1431 we find frequent references to him in the accounts. At first he was used by his father simply as an errand-boy or paymaster, but by 1429, he was given sufficient responsibility (for example) to orde� and pay for large quantities of building materials; it was Lunardo who organized the delivery of 95 barrels of lime in June 1429 so that work on the upper walls could continue, and it was Lunardo who - a few months later - also ordered and paid for the many timber piles necessary for the foundations of the façade. 6 Contarini entrusted such tasks to his son when he was too busy himself, or perhaps when he was out of the city for a short time; but he did not delegate to Lunardo any responsibility for matters ofdesign, nor for arranging new contracts with the masters on site. Such matters remained Marin's exclusive prerogative. In a sense, then, Lunardo became a part­ time clerk ofthe works, but with little real authority; nevertheless, it must have been a useful experience for him. There are no records ofhis presence on site after 143 r. He may have dieci, 3 Ibid., c.3ot. 4 Ibic., c.3 1. The basic item of cloching far the girls was a long, whice shift of linen or ocher fairly good cloth; somecimes ic was 'pano bianco da londra' (Cotswold cloth shipped via London), sometimes it was 'pano da bergamo '. More subscancial wear included capes far the winter, at least one of which was of velvet, bought far Sammaritana on 12 January 1429, togecher wich a long lise of items far her cassone, including silk kerchiefs and ribbons (cortelinij); on another occasion, Marin bought Sammaritana three bags, ali on the same day. 5 These records concain hardly any record of purchases far Marin himself, and he must have kept other ledgers far this purpose. It is not likely thac he dressed parcicularly lavishly himself, though, and chere was considerable standardizacion of dress, notably far government officials, mosc of whom wore a long, full cape known (inaccurately) as a toga. This was supplemented in wintcr by an ourer cape with fur trimmings. 6 References to Lunardo can be faund, i111er alia, in L.IV c.24t and 25; c.34t; c.3 5t; c.45t; c.46t, etc., as far as c.63.

A DOMESTIC INTERLUDE: FAMILY AND SERVANTS 1426-1430

43

...,,,,.-

�1

,14

1 '.

I

1'h

I �

l

'

�l 1 ·

,, \.

\

••• l

½

f

9 A nobleman and his boatman: detail from Vettor Carpaccio's Reception of the

Ambassadors; Sant'Orsola Cycle; Vcnice, Accademia, c.1495.

and he certainl y dici not survive to succeed his father; nevertheless, the cessation of records in 1431 may indicate that he was sent to Candia in the footsteps of Marin's own late brother to help administer the company's affairs there.

Staff and servants We have just a few details of Marin's household during the period of construction. For most of this time, he remained in his father's house at San Felice, which he thus had to share with a number of other members of the casada, including probably at least two of his brothers, Andrea and Guglielmo, togerher with their own wives and families. Marin seems to have had few persona! servancs or staff of his own but, in such a household, staff could clearly be 'pooled ' among them. Nevertheless, as well as the slave noted earlier, Marin also had at least one persona! servant or valet. The first one recorded is Jacomo Darbo, who carne from che Friuli, and who was with Marin for a year untii May 1424; he was paid 24 ducats a year, with board and lodging naturally provided. At about the same time, Marin

44

THE HOUSE OF GOLD

had another servant, Nicolò da Zara, who remained with him from 1424 until about 1426. This is almost certainly the same Nicolò referred to elsewhere as Nicolò Albanese, a fregador (polisher) by tracie, and who later worked on the palace at Santa Sofia. 7 Nicolò was joined by another young man called Zorzi in 1426 but, in October, Zorzi himself seems to have been replaced by yet another servant, Bortolamio from Trento. 8 Bortolamio began work on 15 October and was paid 20 ducats a year, in roughly fortnightly instalments of 1 ducat at a time. The precise ròle of Bc,rtolamio, though, is a little unclear, since Marin allocateci his wages as 'expenses to be put in the libro grando on the account of m y new palace at Santa Sofia'. Unless he performed the duties of some kind of clerk or errand­ boy, though, it is not easy to deduce his ròle. It seems probable that gondoliers and boatmen were generally shared by the various members of the San Felice household. However, for a time at least, Marin employed a gondolier purely for himself; in 1428 he hired a man named Pasqualin, who - a little surprisingly - dici not live at San Felice but had moved into some completed part of the new house, probably one of the ground-floor rooms. This was still severa! years before Marin himself moved in, and this rather curious arrangement seems to have been the produce of necessity - there was simply insufficient space at San Felice for the whole large extended family, and since Santa Sofia was so dose, it was brought into use as 'overspill' acommodation for staff 9 We have only two further records of Marin's own servants. In 1429 he took on Polo, who was to stay with him for six months on a 'tied' basis, and a further six months by mutual agreement. He was paid 2 ducats a month. 1 ° Finally, we have another reference to Nicolò, who was first recorded back in 1424. Eleven years later, he was still with Contarini, but was paid only 6 lire a month, which indicates that despite his years of loyal service, he stili remained a fairly humble servant in the household. 11 7 L.111 e.I and c.3t. See also L.IV c.14t, 15 and 64. 8 L.IV c.22c and 23. 10 L.IV c.4ot and 41. L.IV c.12t. Pasqualin 'sta al presence ala mia casa granda di s.sofia ', in Contarini's words. 11 L.IV. c.64. 9

9 The new palace at Santa Sofia· motives and methods Pero doverà l'Architetto sopra'/ tutto avertire, che [come dice Vitruvio ...] a'Gentilhuomini grandi, e massimamente di Republica si richiederanno case con loggie, e sale spatiose, & ornate ... (Andrea Palladio: I Quattro Libri dell'Architettura: Lib.II Cap.Primo, p.3) The parish in which Marin's new palace was to rise stood on the island immediately east ofSan Felice, and thus a little closer to the banks and markets of Rialto. The parish also lies directly across the Grand Canal from the fishmarket quays, to which it was joined by a traghetto. The small church was of ancient foundation, and was partly surrounded by a clutter of small houses, much as it remains today. The parish campo, focus of the community, formed a rectangle with one short side open to the Grand Canal; it was a modest square, though, and by no means as important a meeting-place as that of Santi Apostoli, a litt!e further east, where several routes met, and where there was probably a small local market. Marin's house did not rise on the campo, but a litt!e further west, since the square was already hemmed-in by existing houses, one of which was the palazzo of the Morosini, later owned by the Sagredo. Contarini's other new neighbours on the banks of the Canalazzo still formed a rather mixed collection of already fairly old Byzantine houses like the Cà da Mosto and the palace of the Marquis of Ferrara, together with some more recent or modernized palazzi, like that of the Morosini, itself originally Byzantine, but recently modernized. There was also a number of smaller, fairly modest houses between these palazzi, so that the overall scale of the housing then was significantly smaller than it is today. ___The landward approach to the new palace - and certainly to the old Zeno house as well was by a calle down the east side ofthe site, known to Contarini as the 'chale de cha zustignan '. There is still a Giustinian house there today, now known as Palazzo Giustinian-Pesaro-Ravà, with its rather unusual L-shaped plan enclosing a small garden. This house itself is of the quattrocentro, and was almost certainly b_uilt shortly before that of Contarini. 1 This calle ran down the whole length of the side of Marin's plot, and joined another at the back, probably the one that he called a lista, later known as the CaHe di San Felice, as it led westwards and across a bridge to that parish. To the east, the same calle turned and entered the campo of Santa Sofia.2 1 2

Palazzo Giustinian has been comprehensivcly restored in recent years. This entire district was transformed in the nineteenth century by the cutting of the Strada Nova through these calli to provide a more direct route from San Marco and Santi Apostoli to the new railway station. For the earlier street pattern, see de'Barbari, and Ughi's survey map of 1729 (copies in A.S.V. and elsewhere); sec also Muratori Studi.

45

THE HOUSE OF GOLD

IO The Cà d'Oro: sketch location pian, based on de'Barbari and later plans and vedute; it attempts to recreate che street pattern in the vicinity of the house, disrupted in che nineteemh century by the cutting of the Strada Nova.

The other, west side of the site was bounded by another, probably very narrow calle, immediately beyond which there seems to have been a single-storey structure, almost certainly a cavanna (boat-house) 3 for the palace next to it. This latter palace no longer exists, and the eighteenth-century Palazzo Giusti today occupies the sites of the earlier house, the cavanna and the calle, the southern end of which is lost. Since Marin's principal entrance was to be on the east side, the western calle was of very little importance. It seems probable that Marin originally inserted two or three windows along the northern section of this wall at ground level, but we cannot trace them today. There is now a single-storey structure abutting the west side of the house and, on the inner face of the flank wall, Baron Franchetti re-surfaced the entire wall with marble at the end of the nineteenth century. On the two upper floors, though, windows could be provided onta the calle, and these have all survived today. This, then, was the immediate urban context into which the new house was to be built.

Motives and methods To explore the characters ofMarin and his father is no easy task. Almost all the surviving papers are of a purely impersona! nature: accounts, wills, contracts, memoranda. There are almost no personal letters, no papers that give us a clear insight into an individua! character. Nevertheless, we may attempt a preliminary assessment of the motives that led to the building of the palace, and of Marin's own approach to its design. This attempt will certainly require further comment as the account of the building process itself is relateci. The over-riding original motive was undoubtedly to provide a fine, large house for the family of a high-ranking nobleman, who might have succeeded in becoming doge. Marin's 3 The cava1111a is idenrifiable on de'Barbari, bur we cannor rell rhe dare of irs consrrucrion.

THE NEW PALACE AT SANTA SOFIA: MOTIVES AND METHODS

47

(or his father's) decision to proceed only three or four years after his wife's death is fairly simple to explain; Marin was still a young man, who already had a son to continue the line, and who could certainly marry again some time in the future. As Goldthwaite has put it, 'The argument that fame could be achieved through building made a great deal of sense to Florentines and upper-class Italians everywhere.' 4 So we also have the simple motive of a desire for fame and self-glorifìcation through the construction process. Marin himself led a highly circumscribed life, and we have already touched on the relationship between him and the head of the branch of the casada, his father. In Venice, as in Florence and Milan, the twin poles that formed the axis around which the world of such merchant-nobles revolved were tracie and faith. The former is a good deal easier for us to comprehend today, since the fìnancial principles on which the prosperity of the Contarini casada depended are precisely those that form che basis of modem international tracie. As always, fìnancial success was built on profìt and wise re-investment. There was indeed a difficult and often contentious interface between the worlds of tracie and faith when it carne to the matter of profìt, and ingenious indeed were some ofthe methods by which merchants avoided che serious charges of usury by the ecclesiastical authorities. This sensitive issue leads to the pole of faith. Origo reminds us 5 that Francesco Datini's ledgers were all headed with the words 'In the name ofGod and ofProfìt ', reflecting the vital role that all-pervading faith had in forming the perceptions and principles by which men like Datini and Contarini lived their lives. There were certainly occasions when it is doubtful whether Datini's order of precedence was followed (as his own friends often remarked), but even the calculating Datini finally settled his account with his Maker at the last, and left his entire fortune to charitable causes. 6 The Church thus played an essential role in forming the moral codes of such men. In the Venetian case (and here we have no parallel with Datini's Prato), there was a third all-pervading influence on Marin: the inescapable embrace of the state, the res publica, which controlled so many aspects ofpatrician life from the age ofeighteen to the grave. Vital to our understanding of the zeitgeist, therefore, are these three influences on Contarini's perception of the world; his faith, his business affairs, and his role in the government of his own Most Serene Republic. Let us propose one or two aspects ofthe character ofthe two Contarini (since in these early stages it is not possible to distinguish Antonio's instructions from Marin's own wishes), as evinced by the palace that they decided to build. And the fìrst proposition to discuss is that both men began with the specific intention of building a tour de farce, a capolavoro of display that would be the fìnest house in the city.· Antonio's own political ambitions appear fairly clear, and there was little to prevent a lavish display iffunds would permit; the sumptuary laws did not apply to the construction of private houses as far as we can tel1 and, of course, in general, the Signoria tacitly encouraged the building offine new houses for the adornment of the city. The basic decision as to the size and form ofthe house must have been an early one, perhaps made in or about 1417. Quite naturally, the house was to be the largest possible within the overall dimensions of the site, which were 22 metres in width and about 3 5 metres in depth. The house covers the whole plot, therefore, with the exception of the small cortile. The dimensions of the site were in fact fairly generous, and its width is more than that of almost all surviving Byzantine houses and indeed of most late gothic palazzi as well. So the two 4 R A. Goldthwaitc The Buildi11g of Renaissance Flore11ce (Baltimore 1980), p.84. 6 Ibid., p.328.

5

Origo Tl,e Mercha11t p.9.

THE HOUSE OF GOLD

Contarini had a broad frontage on which to employ the skills of their master masons, and by this simplest criterion of ali - size - the house was destined to be one of the greatest in the city from the very beginning. 7 Antonio and Marin were naturally maximizing their investment in valuable real estate and, in this extremely congested, densely developed city, we would hardly have expected them to do otherwise, given sufficient resources. 8 So we can draw few useful conclusions from the decision to build as large as house as possible on the site, other than long-term financial expediency; the extraordinary elaboration of the façade, though, was a matter still some way in the future, certainly in 1417, and we cannot teli what may have been in Antonio's mind in these early years regarding the final image that he wished to project to the city. Prudence, however, would seem to have been one of the more pronounced aspects of the characters of Antonio and Marin, when we record that a large number of decorative bas-reliefs and column capitals were to be carefully salvaged from the old Zeno house for re-use in the new palace. Such a course of action does indeed suggest care and prudence, the actions of a man well aware of the value of such pieces. But much evidence that emerges from the records of the construction of the new palace indicates that careful advance planning was almost the precise antithesis of Marin's approach to design, and we must therefore put this salvage and re­ use into the context of the time. The practice was indeed commonplace, and one that was to continue down the centuries. Superficially, this deeply ingrained habit of 're-cycling ' may suggest the supposed Venetian trait of prudence (more bluntly described as meanness by countless foreign visitors), but a more accurate and flattering interpretation is that it gives evidence of a well-developed appreciation of the craftsmanship of these Byzantine pieces, and the status gained by their re-use. Such work was indeed highly regarded (vide San Marco itself ), and was not felt to be old-fashioned in the modem, pejorative sense of the phrase. 9 Most of the bas-relief panels were later to be carefully incorporateci into the design of the façade, and one that was given particular attention and prominence is the vertical panel dividing the two parts of the elevation, with the Contarini arms near the centre. Taken as a whole, these pieces �dd considerably to the overall richness of the façade. Although similar re­ use is to a degree characteristic ofVenetian palaces, therefore, nowhere else is it so extensively and carefully integrated into the elevation. At the time of the demolition of the Zeno house, it is most unlikely that detailed designs of the façade had developed beyond some preliminary sketches, and so we are left with an image of the painstaking removal of perhaps 200 or 300 pieces of stone, followed by its careful storage, with no clear idea yet as to how it would all be re-used. Such a course of action is in many ways typical of the approach of Marin to the whole design process, which was in essence fragmentary and disjointed. Considerable ingenuity must have been necessary on the part of Bon and the rest when ic carne to che relocation of this jigsaw of Byzantine fragments. But the most fondamenta! question of ali concerning Marin's role in the design of the house is the extent to which we can truly consider him as his own architect. Conversely, how much of the detailed design did he entrust to che creative minds and extensive experience of Raverti, Bon and Romanello? There are many degrees becween one extreme position and the ' The overall pian dimensions ofthc Cà d'Oro are only cxceeded by a few late gothic palazzi such as Cà Foscari and Palazzo Pesaro at S. Beneto. The length ofthe great hall is similarly excceded only by those in these same few later quattrocento houses. 8 Not only was the all-important frontage to che Grand Canal always maximized but on occasion cven the narrow culs-de-sac between houses were bridged by mutuai conscnt, so that there was a continuous 'wall ' of development; see Cà Foscari and thc two adjaccnt Giustinian houses, for an examplc. 9 lt is oftcn suggested that the re-use of Byzantine elemcnts had its origins in the infamous Fourth Crusade (1204-5), when Venetian galleys returned laden with thc spoils ofByzantium. However, much Byzantine work in Venice is oflocal origin.

THE NEW PALACE AT SANTA SOFIA: MOTIVES AND METHODS

49

other, between Marin as the 'onlie begetter ' at one extreme and Marin simply as an enlightened patron at the other. As we will see, the truth indeed lay somewhere between these two pole positions and his precise r6le will become dear as we recount the building of the palace. But we can note here that he took a dose interest in the architectural tastes of his time and, on occasion, to good effect. He seems to have had an eye for detail, particularly for new or unusual and inventive forms. In his perambulations around the city he saw and noted several details on other houses that drew his attention, and to which he then directed his own masters; these works were not to be copied precisely, but the master was to adopt the spirit of the work in question. There may well have been something of what we might derogatively describe as 'keeping up with the Priuli ' in this approach, in this rather magpie-like _acquisition of motifs, and there is some justification in this criticism. Contarini's entire approach was un­ co-ordinated, the approach of the enthusiastic amateur, and we can find no clearer example of this lack of overall co-ordination than this 'borrowing ' of details from elsewhere. lntimately connected with Contarini's aesthetic contro! over the design process is the matter of his motives, and here we must return to our earlier question: did he begin with the specific intention of building the richest palace in the city, or was it an evolutionary process, directed by the slow, laborious task of stone-carving, a process that left plenty of time for ideas to develop between one stage and the next? More mundanely, perhaps also dictated by financial expediency? There was certainly time even for major changes of direction; eight years were to elapse between the appointment of Bon and the gilding of the façade. In fact, the entire process was to be an organic, staged procedure. There was no initial 'grand design ' that was to be diligently followed to completion, no master plan that had been hatched in the mind of Antonio back in 1417 or 1418, and which was to be scrupulously executed over many years. Only the very broadest of motives were established at the beginning, that there was to be a fine, new palace that was occupy the whole site of the original Zeno house. Almost all of the other aspects of the design of the Cà d'Oro were staged, organic and piecemeal. And most of them, too, were a result of Marin's extraordinarily dose involvement in the design, an involvement that was to verge on the obsessional, and one in which his father - after about 1423 - played virtually no part in at all. To that extent, the Cà d'Oro was to be Marin Contarini's own highly persona! monument to his family and his city.

10 First impressions : the plan, structure and appearance of the palace

Frà le Jaccie, alcune hanno la Loggia à pie piano con colonne, & con volti ... Et era ciò fatto da i Vecchi: perche conducendo à casa le mercantie, le scaricavano in Loggia ... (Sansovino Venetia Vol. I p.3 84)

Our first impression of the Cà d'Oro as we look at its façade from the quays of the Pescheria opposite is ofrichness, ofextensive, complex, carved stonework. lndeed, this is one ofthe most remarkable aspects ofthe façade: it is clad entirely with stone and marble, the only brick visible being that to the flank wall down the calle at the side. This is an important observation, since although all houses in this period were built of brick, and a!though there was often considerable carved stone to the individual features of the façade, the walls themselves were either left as facing brickwork, or were more commonly rendered with lime mortar. W e know of no other private house of the later gothic period on which the entire wall surface is sheathed with marble, as we see here. Even the greatest of the last gothic houses (such as Cà Foscari) have façades with extensive surfaces ofbrick or render. lt is not until the last decades ofthe century that we find the first Lombard Renaissance palaces clad in this way; one ofthe first examples is Palazzo Dario, but it was not built until the 1480s, halfa century after the Cà d'Oro. Contarini may have taken as one ofhis models some earlier Byzantine house that no longer survives; the remaining Byzantine evidence today is sparse, and houses such as Palazzo Loredan and that of the Marquis of Ferrara (the Fòndaco dei Turchi) have all been heavily restored. The Palazzo Ducale was almost certainly an influence on Contarini, as we will see in Chapter 26. But it is the very extensive sculptural stonework that provides the real substance ofluxury, rather than the mere suggestion of it in the veneered cladding. And, to crown the whole ensemble, there is Marin's extraordinary crenellation, which is entirely exuberant, functionless decoration. Nevertheless, before we gain an initial (and false) impression that the entire house was built with little or no regard for its final cost, we must note one or two other aspects of the overall design. Firstly, although the façade is indeed extremely rich, most ofthe rest ofthe exterior of the house is comparatively simply detailed, albeit on a spacious scale. Marin Contarini therefore concentrateci his resources, not surprisingly, on the façade, and in so doing 50

THE PLAN, STRUCTURE AND APPEARANCE OF THE PALACE

5I

11 The Cà d'Oro: view from che Pescheria, showing che excenc of sconework down che flank wall.

he was (in principle) simply following general practice in che city. The contrast between che ornate principal façade and the courtyard façades, for example, is so notable simply because che canal façade is so elaborate; the courtyard, on the other hand, closely resembles those of many other large late gothic houses. The difficulty as to how far co take che façade treatment down rhe side wall of the house was solved, almost inevitably, by returning the elaborate detail about ten feet down the calle, where it simply scops. 1 Contarini spent lavishly on his façade, therefore, but less so elsewhere, although he also indulged in a great flourish of display on the main entrance into the cortile from the street.

The plan and structure of the house The façade indicates that che plan behind it is not che traditional Venetian tripartite, symmetrical one, bue rather an asymmetrical one, with the long central axis of the great hall but with only one of the two side wings. However, this cwo-part division of the façade does not quite reflect the internal plan, which is a little more complex; the right-hand part does indeed represent the existence behind che façade of one of the two traditional flanking wings and, on this side, towards the rear, we find che sequence of rooms interrupted by the cortile. This courtyard provided land access from the 'chale de cha zustignan '. The more subtle aspects of che plan, rhough, are on the left side. Contarini's great hall does not occupy the full width of this wing, but only half of it, and there is a row of rooms down 1

Marin was a lirt!e unfortunate in that the L-shaped plan of the Palazzo Giustinian across the calle meant that a large amount of his own flank wall was visible from the Grand Canal, and hence the unavoidably arbitrary point at which the façade detailing srops is rendered more prominent than it might havc bcen elsewhere. Far rhe crcnellation. see below, p.209.

52

THE HOUSE OF GOLD

the west side, the presence of which is not indicateci at all on the façade. This is because the great hall stops short of the façade and widens out to form a broad loggia, which itself - on both upper storeys - is expressed externally by Raverti's two magnifìcent traceried screens. The main hall is rather narrow but very long, and the logge at its end are thus about twice its width. With indirect light only from the south end, the hall would bave been extremely dark, but it also receives light from a group of windows onta the cortile. And, at the northern end, the hall space is continued both to the east (enclosing the north side of the cortile) and west, forming a small ante-room. The basic arrangement of the principal spaces thus takes the form of an inverted 'L ', the long arm being the great hall and the shorter one the loggia onta the Grand Canal. This is an unusual form for a house of this period but one that was to a large extent predetermined by the original constraints of the old Zeno house; and it is by no means rare to fìnd such confìgurations in earlier Veneto-Byzantine houses. 2 With no such constraints it would certainly bave been possible to build a conventionally tripartite house within the overall site width of 22 metres, thus giving three bays each of about seven metres' span, a typical dimension for such houses. 3 At some stage in our discussion, we must dispose of the long-held theory that Marin intended to build a much larger house, of which what we see today is said to represent only two-thirds of a projected extremely broad symmetrical façade. There is no documentary e:7idence to support this thesis, which seems to bave grown from a natural desire by later writers to 'complete ' what was seen as an incomplete elevation. Marin's site was circumscribed on all sides, and on both flanks there were existing houses of some size. It is quite clear from examining the house today and from analysis of Contarini's own notes that what we see is what be intended to build; his requirements far the stonework to both corners of the façade are recorded, and we bave accounts of payment for this work after it was executed. Contarini may possibly bave once harboured the hope of acquiring the neighbouring site to the west; perhaps he even tried to negotiate with the adjoining owners in the years before 1421. Once again, though, there is no evidence at ali far this, and the reasons for the asymmetrical façade will be discussed in Chapter 18. Certainly, after 1424 (at the very latest) Marin could do no other than proceed with the present house, and from 1425 we bave evidence of stone being carved for the west corner to match that on the east. On the ground floor the plan is mostly open, although this is partly a result of Baron Franchetti's alterations in the 1890s and early 1900s. In its original form, the ground-floor androne echoed the width of the great halls of the two upper floors, and a long spine wall ran down the centre of what is today a double-width androne with columns down the centre. To the west of this hallway there were stores (we do not know the number, but probably two or three), which were probably lit from the calle at the side. The central row of columns was thus added by Franchetti to support the main pòrtego wall above, and the buttressing arch was added at the same time. Th