Venice and the Doges. Six Hundred Years of Architecture, Monuments, and Sculpture 0847899292, 9780847899296

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TOTO BERGAMO ROSSI

AND THE SIX HUNDRED YEARS OF ARCHITECTURE, MONUMENTS, AND SCULPTURE

photographs by MATTEO DE FINA contributions by MARINO ZORZI

PETER MARINO DIANE VON FURSTENBERG

~ZOL!Electa

PETER MARINO President and Chairman Venetian Heritage Inc.

IV

S

ince 1999, Venetian Heritage Inc. has been promoting Venetian culture through a vast cam-

paign of restoration projects carried out not only in Venice but in all the territories that were once part of the Venetian Republic. This ambitious program has received the support of Italian and international institutions, foundations, and patrons, united by the desire to preserve the incredible artistic heritage that the Venetian Republic disseminated in all the eastern Mediterranean from the Middle Ages to the end of the eighteenth century. Venetian Heritage continues to ceaselessly collect donations to help preserve and promote this cultural heritage, which is unique in all the world.

We are proud to present the volume by Toto Bergamo Rossi, director of the Venice Office of Venetian Heritage Foundation dedicated to the monuments of the Doges in Venice, published by Rizzoli thanks to the support of the Diller-von Furstenberg Family Foundation. Here in Venice, sculpture was the favored medium through which civic virtues could be allegorically represented and the heroes and doges of the Republic celebrated. Yet, unlike painting, sculpture has not always received the critical attention it deserves. I'm grateful to the author for bringing attention back to this unique but too often neglected art. This book finally fills a vast gap and was conceived to be easily consulted, thus pursuing the intent of Venetian Heritage to make Venetian art and culture accessible to all.

DIANE VON FURSTENBERG

VI

W

hen we think of Venice, we immediately think of the Doges. These r20 mythical char-

acters were warriors, politicians, literates, and included even a saint, Pietro Orseolo. They embrace the millennial history of the Republic of Venice, evoking the greatness of a state that, in the period of its maximal expansion, would range from Bergamo and Brescia to the island of Cyprus. This book is an original idea of Toto Bergamo Rossi who takes us through the sculptural masterpieces present in the churches of Venice. The Diller-van Furstenberg Family Foundation is proud to sponsor this volume. From the nomination of the first doge in 697 CE to the fatal date of May r2, r797, when the last doge Ludovico Manin abdicated in favor of the French, the study of the monuments of the doges of the Serenissima enables us an excursus between the most important names of Venetian art; from the unknown stone masons-masters of antiquity to the Lombardo family, from Antonio Rizzo to Jacopo Sansovino, from Alessandro Vittoria to Baldassare Longhena, and Andrea Tirali. All of the most famous architects and sculptors active in Venice have dealt with this particular art form in a true compendium of plastic wonders. This editorial work is destined to become an ideal starting point for numerous itineraries in the most secretive and secluded locations . A sort of" catalog" richly illustrated, of a permanent "exhibition," that not only retraces the historic-artistic borders but also promotes more conscious and attentive fruition. The volume is characterized by a unique photographic campaign, commissioned, and realized for the occasion in semi-deserted Venetian churches in the difficult months of lockdown and before the reopening. Extremely rich in detailing and with completely unprecedented frames, it consents to an in-depth knowledge of the sculptural heritage while simultaneously providing an unexpected aesthetic delight. A heritage that does not only belong to Italy but to the entire world.

CONTENTS 1

SIX HUNDRED YEARS OF ARCHITECTURE , MONUMENTS , AND SCULPTURE Toto Bergamo Rossi

7

THE DOGE OF VENICE: FROM BYZANTINE MAGISTRATE TO CONSITUTIONAL MONARCH

Marino Zorzi

THE MONUMENTS OF THE DOGES Toto Bergamo Rossi with Sebastiano Pedrocco

62

TRIBUNO MENIO (OR MEMMO)

66

98

ANDREA DANDOLO

DOMENICO I CONTARINI

102

GIOVANNI DOLFIN

70

VITALE FALIER

ro6

MARCO CORNER

73

DOMENICO MICHIEL

rr3

ANDREA CONTARINI

76

SEBASTIANO ZIANI

rr4

MICHELE MOROSINI

79

ENRICO DANDOLO

rr8

ANTONIO VENIER

80

GIACOMO AND LORENZO TIEPOLO

122

MICHELE STENO

83

MARINO MOROSINI

127

TOMMASO MOCEN IGO

85

RENIER ZEN (RANIERI ZENO)

134

FRANCESCO FOSCARI

86

GIOVANNI DANDOLO

144

PASQ1JALE MALIPIERO

89

MARINO ZORZI

150

CRISTOFORO MORO

90

GIOVANNI SORANZO

155

NICOLO TRON

92

FRANCESCO DANDOLO

162

NICOLO MARCELLO

96

BARTOLOMEO GRADENIGO

171

PIETRO MOCENIGO

178

ANDREA VENDRAMIN

269

MARCANTONIO MEMMO

195

GIOVANNI MOCENIGO

274

FRANCESCO AND ALVISE CONTARINI

200

MARCO AND AGOSTINO BARBARIGO

282

FRANCESCO ERIZZO

207

LEONARDO LOREDAN

288

CARLO CONTARINI

212

AND REA G RITTI

2 93

GIOVANNI PESARO

216

FRANCESCO DONA

3o3

NICOLO SAGREDO

219

MARCANTONIO TREVISAN

306

MARCANTONIO GIUSTINIAN

224

FRANCESCO VENIER

3u

FRANCESCO MOROSINI

232

LORENZO AND GIROLAMO PRIULI

3 14

BERTUCCI AND SILVESTRO VALIER

238

ALVISE I MOCENIGO

324

ALVISE II MOCENIGO

245

SEBASTIANO VENIER

328

GIOVANNI I, FRANCESCO , AND GIOVANNI II CORNER

248 2 53

NICOLO DA PONTE 336

CARLO RUZZINI

34 1

LUDOVICO MANIN

PASQ!JALE C ICOGNA

2 57

MARINO GRIMANI

264

LEONARDO DONA

344

TIMELINE

by Toto Bergamo Rossi and Sebastiano Pedrocco 351

REFERENCE BIBLIOGRAPHY

356

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS AND PHOTO CREDITS

TOTO BERGAMO ROSSI

SIX HUNDRED YEARS OF ARCHITECTURE, MONUMENTS, AND SCULPTURE

A

s early as the seventeenth century some guide books were being printed describing for

enlightened travelers the masterpieces painted by the great Venetian, Florentine, and Roman artists. Many of these works of art were commissioned by the numerous courts that governed Italy, divided at the time into different states, a situation that lasted until the late nineteenth century. Ever since Greek and Roman antiquity, sculpture had been the most common figurative art used to represent and perpetuate images of deities, emperors, and later of personified virtues and notable figures. Through the sculptors' choice of materials, such as marble, wood, bronze, and

terracotta, their likenesses have often survived almost intact. From the sixteenth century onward, painting gradually took over, stealing the scene from sculpture and keeping its dominant position for centuries. Fortunately, in recent decades, there has been a renewed interest in sculpture. This book aims to make the history of the stylistic development of sculpture in Venice accessible to the general public through descriptions of the funerary monuments of the doges of Venice, in the hope of reviving interest in this art form that is so immediate, yet all too often ignored. In the early fifteenth century, the Republic of Venice commissioned hundreds of reliefs carved with its symbol of the winged lion of St. Mark, with a book open or closed and its legs resting on sea and land. Many of these reliefs can still be seen on the facades of public buildings, loggias, clocks in the piazzas and over the gates of Venice itself as well as other cities it once ruled. Its dominions comprised parts of Lombardy, the Veneto, Friuli, !stria, Dalmatia, the coasts of Montenegro and Albania, several ports in the Peloponnese, and many of the Greek islands as far away as Crete and Cyprus. Venice is one of the few Italian cities that cannot boast Roman origins, so it lacks archaeological remains from classical antiquity. It was founded between the sixth and ninth centuries, and until the eleventh it was part of the Eastern Roman Empire, ruled from Constantinople, then the center of the Mediterranean world. Under that city's cosmopolitan influence and despite the lack of nearby stone quarries and the difficulties of transport, the Venetians brought stone and marble from all over the Mediterranean basin to decorate the facades of their palaces, churches, and public buildings and to commemorate illustrious citizens. Art historian Sergio Bettini called St. Mark's basilica the last great temple of late antiquity. Together with the basilica of Santa Maria e San Donato on Murano and the cathedral of Torcello, it bears witness to the influence of Byzantine art during the late Middle Ages . The paving, wall facings, and some of the sculptures kept in these buildings contain examples of ancient marble reused by the Venetians, who even when they were no longer subject to Byzantium emulated its art.

I

Christian sarcophagus in red porphyry, Byzantine civilization, 6th century Archaeological Museum, Istanbul

With the Fourth Crusade and the conquest of Constantinople, Venice became, in part, the heir to the Eastern Roman Empire. The four gilt-bronze horses from the Hippodrome of the imperial city were brought here, together with hundreds of columns and slabs of precious marble, reused down to the mid-sixteenth century to decorate numerous facades and monuments, some of them illustrated in this volume. The stability of Venice's government, its control over markets in the eastern Mediterranean, and its extraordinary political system, guided by an enlightened oligarchy, enabled the republic's longevity over ten centuries. By the late eighteenth century, the aging republic was enfeebled, having lost much of the power it possessed in the Middle Ages, when Marco Polo traveled to China. But it was still the Most Serene Republic, renowned as the oldest continuously existing state in Europe, represented since 697 by a doge elected to hold office for life. In Europe, no other elected head of state ruled for life, except for the popes who, like the doges, were forbidden to pass on their title. This unique political system is reflected in the monuments of the doges. The earliest doges were buried at Eraclea, in mainland Italy, the original seat of Venetian government. In 755, Doge Diodato Ipato was buried at Malamocco, the new capital built on the tip of Venice's Lido, chosen for its remoteness from the perilous mainland. Doge Agnello Particiaco (or Partecipazio) founded a Benedictine monastery on the island of Sant'Ilario, and was buried there in 827. Other doges of the same family were buried on Sant'Ilario, as were some doges of the Candiani family. Some doges were buried near the ancient basilica of Grado and on the

2

TOTO BERGAMO ROSSI

DONATELLO AND MICHELOZZO Tomb of Cardinal Rinaldo Brancaccio, 1426-1428 Church of Sant'Angelo a Nilo, Naples

island of Ammiana which, like Sant'Ilario, has now sunk beneath the waters of the lagoon. In 864; Doge Pietro Tradonico was the first to be buried in Venice itself, in the church of San Zaccaria. No remains in stone of the earliest burials of the doges have survived. This book presents the surviving funerary monuments of the doges in chronological order of those who reigned down to 1797. The first monument commemorates Tribuno Menio, who died in 991, a posthumous commemorative sepulchre erected in r6rn on the Palladian facade of the basilica on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore. The Benedictine monks commissioned it in memory of the donation the doge had made for the foundation of the monastery. The funerary monuments of the doges Domenico I Contarini, Domenico Michie!, and Sebastiano Ziani, illustrated here, were also erected at later times, as their burial places were lost when the churches containing them were rebuilt. Domenico Selvo, who died in rn84, was the first doge to be buried in St. Mark's basilica, but no trace remains of his monument. His successor Vitale Falier is buried in the narthex of St. Mark's. Some important doges were also buried in the basilica until 1354, when the monument was erected to Doge Andrea Dandolo. For the first time, it represented his recumbent effigy on the sarcophagus. This was the first example of a reclining figure (or gisant) to appear on a ducal tomb, a form that lasted until the Renaissance. Doges Jacopo and Lorenzo Tiepolo were the first to be buried in the Dominican basilica of Santi Giovanni e Paolo, each laid in a sarcophagus, a chest with a monolithic lid resembling the forms of the late antique tombs of the emperors of the East. After them, most of the princes of the Serenissima erected their monuments in the same basilica, which became the pantheon of the Republic of Venice. Some preferred the Franciscan basilica of Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari or other places of worship. There was no special rule for the burial places chosen by the doges, who would leave precise instructions for their funeral monuments in their

SIX HUNDRED YEARS OF ARCHITECTU RE , MONUMENTS. AND SCULPTURE

3

FILIPPO BRUNELLESCHI Old Sacristy, 15th century Basilica of San Lorenzo, Florence

wills. Some even name the sculptor who should be given the commission. They also left sizable sums for the purpose of perpetuating their memory. The Republic of Venice itself never financed a single ducal funerary monument. The style of Donatello spread to Venice by about 1423 and can be seen in sculptures on monuments to doges Tommaso Mocenigo and Francesco Foscari. In the second half of the fifteenth century, the sculptors and architects Antonio Rizzo and Pietro Lombardo made important stylistic innovations by bringing the Renaissance to Venice. They built the first funerary monuments with their bases resting directly on the floors of churches, breaking with the tradition of wall-mounted tombs that had continued from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century. Doge Nicolo Tron was depicted twice in the monument executed by Rizzo in about 1476 in the basilica of the Frari. For the first time, the doge's effigy appeared standing as if alive, although the sarcophagus with the bier and the recumbent figure of the doge was still set at the center of the monument. Pietro Lombardo brought in other innovations, which he had probably seen and admired in Florence. The composition of the monument to Doge Pietro Mocenigo in the basilica of Santi Giovanni e Paolo shows he must have known some important architectural and sculptural models made in Florence in the first half of the fifteenth century, such as Cardinal Brancaccio's tomb made by Donatello and Michelozzo in Pisa and installed in the church of Sant' Angelo a Nilo in Naples. In the chapel of Doge Cristofaro Moro in the church of San Giobbe in Venice, Pietro Lombardo elaborated on Brunelleschi's project for the first Medici chapel, the Old Sacristy in the Florentine basilica of San Lorenzo. Again, he borrowed from the monument to Leonardo Bruni by Bernardo Rossellino ( 1450) in the basilica of Santa Croce in Florence, repeating the architectural device of the geometric partition based on marble slabs laid with the niche in the monument to Doge Pasquale Malipiero. This device proved very popular in Venice, as it appears in some monuments to doges designed between the late fifteenth and early seventeenth century.

4

TOTO BERGAMO ROSSI

SIX HUNDRED YEARS OF ARCHITECTURE , MONUMENTS. AND SCULPTURE

5

MARINO ZORZI

THE DOGE OF VENICE From Byzantine Magistrate to Constitutional Monarch

THE DOGE FIRST MAGISTRATE O F THE REPUBLIC

T

he office of doge brought many burdens and few practical advantages, at least in the form that it took in the fifteenth century and retained until the fall of the republic. The doge's days were busy, making heavy demands on him even during public festivities. As Venetian

historian Marin Sanudo wrote, "in the morning in the Sala del Collegio and then lunch or the

Council of Ten, or the Council of Pregadi, or a public audience; on holidays the Great Council [which met every Sunday), so that in the course of the year there is rarely a day of rest."' The doge had to be present at the proceedings of all the major constitutional bodies, to perform various tasks assigned to him by law, and preside at numerous religious and civil festivals. And he might be roused in the middle of the night by the arrival of councillors and advisers bearing urgent messages, as happened several times to Leonardo Loredan and Andrea Gritti. The demands on his time were 2

truly unremitting. Financially, it was a burden. The newly elected doge was carried through St. Mark's Square in a sort of sedan chair called the pozzetto, 3 from which he threw money to the people, out of his own pocket. Then he would have to offer great banquets on various occasions, always at his own expense. He received an allowance, but it was quite inadequate, and he also had to pay taxes on it. Each year at Carnival, he had to send the nobles "five oselle each as a token of his affection," while receiving at the time of Sanudo a state contribution of 300 ducats, although "he spends much more of his own money."4 His constitutional activities were hedged about by a series of rules and restrictions performed in compliance with a strict protocol. He could not grant an audience except in the presence of councillors. If someone spoke to him about matters of state he had to change the subject. He had to live in the special apartments in the Doge's Palace and could not leave the city without permission from the Council, not even to go on vacation. An apt saying (which exists in various versions) described him as "in solemnities an emperor, in the state a senator, in the city a prisoner and outside it a criminaI."s His family was subject to similar restrictions. His children and siblings could not hold public office, except for the right to sit in the Senate, and his nephews could not be governors of colonies or ambassadors. 6 Yet the office was coveted. It was the crowning glory of a patrician career. It was, Sanudo wrote, "the highest office that our republic gives its deserving gentlemen," and added, "It is generally given to of the oldest and worthiest patricians among the nine procurators of St. Mark."7 It was an enduring glory for whoever was elected and his family, an honor without equal in the state. It was

7

an opportunity to show complete commitment to the service of the state, being practically identified with it. The doge was "the high priest of the state," that secular religion to which all the citizens were deeply devoted. He was "the highest figure in society, the celebrant of the community's life." 8 His robes, the ceremonial surrounding him, every detail was charged with symbolic significance. He also had religious prerogatives, like the emperor in Constantinople. He was the sole and undisputed head of a state ecclesiastical hierarchy that included the primicerius of St. Mark, an office whose holder was equal in rank to a bishop, and the canons, since the basilica, the church of the state, was his church. The many monasteries and hospices dependent on it were under his direct jurisdiction. His person had a sacred character. At the greatest solemnities he gave his blessing to the people, wishing to ensure, as Anton Maria Lamberti writes, "that he was a father to them rather than their prince," confirming how great "was the religious veneration felt for his government and for the one who represented it" among the common people.9 A fine inscription dating from n69, in the chapel of San Clemente in St. Mark's basilica expresses what was expected of the doge: "Love justice, give to each what is their due. The poor, the widow, the orphan hope to find a patron in you. Be kind to all. Let neither fear, nor hatred, nor love of gold guide you." 10 He was at the center of the many festivals celebrated in the course of the year to commemorate glorious events, arousing in the people "a lively enthusiasm and a religious veneration for their homeland."" On the feast of Sensa (Ascension Day), a religious and political festival, it was the doge who performed the marriage of Venice with the sea by casting a ring into the waters at San Nicolo di Lido. The ceremony grew out of the ancient propitiatory spring blessing at the start of the season suitable for navigation. Such a variety of solemn functions could hardly fail to prove an extraordinary attraction for patricians. The doge's high moral authority also stemmed from the antiquity of his insignia, dating back to the Eastern Roman Empire. But all memory of that origin had vanished and they were believed to have been a gift from Pope Alexander III, the august guest of Doge Sebastiano Ziani in n77. The doge's chair and sword had belonged to the ipato (ypathos, consul) and the spatario (spatharios, bodyguard), high dignitaries at the imperial court of Byzantium. The third and most important emblem, the baculus (scepter), was replaced in the communal period by the banner of St. Mark. In great processions, the doge was sheltered by a parasol of gold brocade, an imperial honor inherited from Byzantium. He was preceded by trumpets and banners, with a ceremonial inspired by that once paid to the emperor of the East, whose heir the doge was, at least in part. The doge's corno (a term which is a variant of the Latin corona, meaning crown) was a bonnet or cap, developed out of a pre-Roman headdress. The most precious one, the zoia, was studded with gems; a less lavish one served for less solemn occasions. In some cases, he wore the tocco, a toque or

MARINO ZORZI

bonnet worn by Venetian admirals. His robe was also Byzantine in origin, simple until the period of Sebastiano Ziani, then gradually richer and finally modified in the sixteenth century. Dating from the twelfth century, the camauro was a cap worn under the corno, also called a rensa because it was made of a fine material from Reims. Under the republic, the rituals, customs, and laws were all enriched, adapted, but never lost. The doge had a right to the three crowns of the kingdoms of Candia (Crete), Cyprus and Morea ( the Peloponnese). His name was impressed on coins ( where a stylized image, always the same over the centuries, showed him kneeling before St. Mark, who presents him with his banner), on the state's lead seals and on the oselle, where his image could be treated more freely. His shield was hung up in St. Mark's basilica, his coat of arms fluttered on the banners raised on the three flagstaffs before the church. On great occasions, he traveled aboard a magnificent state barge reserved for his use alone, called the Bucintoro, glittering with gold and symbolic carvings, and at other times on special decorated watercraft, the peatoni ducali.

THE DOGE OF VENICE

9

FRANCESCO GUARDI Departure of the Bucintoro on Ascension Day ea.

1776-1770

Musee du Louvre, Paris

Another ancient ceremony was the banquet offered by the doge to eighteen inhabitants of the island of Poveglia, in memory of the heroic conduct of their ancestors during the legendary attack on Venice by Pepin, the son of Charlemagne (or perhaps during the war with Chioggia ). The ritual interview went as follows: "God bless you, Lord Doge, we have come to dine with you," said the inhabitants of Poveglia. And the doge would reply, "You are welcome." And they continued, "We desire our privilege." And the doge responded, "Gladly. What is it?" And they said, "We wish to kiss

•

you." 13 And then they would kiss the sovereign on the cheek. A sumptuous banquet followed, with the doge seated at the head of the table. A ceremony animated by a similar spirit took place during the Festa delle Marie. This celebrated an ancient, legendary victory over pirates who had kidnapped some brides at Olivolo (Castello) outside the cathedral. The casseleri ( cabinetmakers who specialized in making wedding chests) are said to have played an active part in the expedition to recover the A deep bond united the doge to the Venetians, who not only acclaimed him at numerous public ceremonies, but also met him on special occasions, regulated by ancient rites of fellowship. One was the feast of melons, held in honor of the doge in the first year of his government by the guild of frutaroli or fruit sellers. Gasparo Gozzi, who saw the one held in 1762 in honor of Marco Foscarini, tells us that the procession started from the guild's headquarters in Santa Maria Formosa, led by the "doge of the Nicolotti" ( representing one of the districts of Venice), accompanied by trumpets and 12

pipes, and arrived at the Doge's Palace bearing large, choice melons to the banqueting hall, where they were presented to the true doge with a speech to which he replied, reciprocating the gift of melons with an abundance of wine and food. In 1521, as Marin Sanudo recorded, the gift numbered 150 melons; by the eighteenth century it had grown to 480.

10

MARI NO ZORZI

brides. The only reward they asked for was that the doge should visit their parish, Santa Maria Formosa. The doge is said to have tried to put it off by saying, "What if I am hungry? What if I am thirsty? What if it rains?" And the casseleri would reassure him by providing oranges, flasks of wine, and straw hats. The parish priest was still offering them to the visiting doge in 1797. To one hundred workers at the Arsenale, 14 the doge would offer a banquet on the feast of Ascension. On St. Jerome's Day, he feasted the members of the Signory ( the collective governing body) and the Grand Chancellor, and in another room the secretaries of the Senate together with the ballottini, the children who assisted with the complex voting formalities in the Great Council and the Senate. Then the doge had to offer four great banquets a year, on the feasts of St. Mark, St. Stephen, St. Vitus, and Ascension. During preparations for these banquets, the women of the

THE DOGE OF VENICE

II

ANONYMOUS The ducal corno of Francesco Morosini late 17th century Museo Correr, Venice

people could enter and admire the tableware, the magnificent glass epergnes, and the sugar sculptures that adorned the tables in the eighteenth century; then they were regaled with gifts of flowers, fruit, and confectionery. The election of the doge was regulated by a complicated formula that became fixed in 1268, after a lengthy development. From the Great Council, thirty nobles were chosen by lot, being those who had drawn a golden ball from an urn (the others were silver). From these thirty, nine were drawn with the same system; these nine then chose forty; from these forty, twelve were drawn by lot; they elected twenty-five; from these, nine were drawn by lot; they elected forty-five; from these, eleven were drawn by lot, and they elected the forty-one who elected the doge. The decisive moment to draw on kinship, friendship, political connections, ties of affinity and interest came when fate had decided the names of the eleven, since on them rested the choice of the forty-one. Similar factors were also at work in the previous rounds of voting. The balls were drawn from the urn by a child of eight or ten years old, called the ducal ballottino, chosen by the youngest of the six consiglieri ducali or ducal counsillors, and by the youngest of the three capi or presidents of the Quarantia. Before voting began, they would go out and look for a boy in St. Mark's basilica. The forty-one had finally to be approved by the Great Council. Then they gathered in conclaves in the Doge's Palace in some rooms separated from the rest of the building with wooden boards. There they had to eat and sleep, and were not allowed to go out or communicate with those outside. Even the windows were boarded up to a height that prevented them from looking out. Sometimes, everything went smoothly. Leonardo Loredan was elected at the first ballot (at least twenty-five votes were needed), as was Marin Falier. Sebastiano Venier immediately received all the votes, except his own. But this was hardly the rule. Six or seven rounds of voting were normal, but sometimes they went on even longer. For Nicolo da Ponte, it took forty-five ballots, seventy-one for Marino Grimani, seventy-six for Pietro Loredan, and seventy-nine for Francesco Contarini. Four or five days usually sufficed, but it took twelve for Pietro Loredan and Pasquale Cicogna, sixteen for Marino Grimani and no fewer than thirty for Nicolo Dona. The members of the Signory would appear in such cases at the doors of the rooms where the voters were gathered and solemnly urge a rapid decision, but to little effect. In earlier times, common people had played at least a formal part in the election, that of approving the doge presented to them, but now they took no part in the proceedings. They could only acclaim the chosen doge and pick up the handfuls of coins he was required to throw to them

12

MAR_lNO ZORZI

JACOPO ROBUST! CALLED TINTORETTO Doge Priuli Receiving the Symbols of Justice, detail, 1559-1567 Doge's Palace, Venice

in his processions through St. Mark's Square. This was a delicate moment. Those who threw only a few coins obviously became unpopular. Domenico II Contarini threw 2,000 ducats to the people, Antonio Priuli 3,000. Leonardo Dona threw very few coins and the people vied for them by throwing snowballs at each other. Some of them also struck the new doge, perhaps not by chance. People took a lively interest in the election, naturally from outside, expressing their preferences with slogans and noise. When Marino Grimani was elected, they shouted, "Hurrah for Grimani, he will make the loaves bigger." Years before, in 1559, the people had hated another Grimani, Girolamo, hunchbacked and with a reputation as a miser. "If you elect Grimani," they shouted, "we will throw him to the dogs." He was not made doge, but not because of the shouting, Girolamo Priuli was elected instead. Twice, the Slav soldiers, the faithful Dalmatians, staged noisy demonstrations in favor of their general, Leonardo Foscolo, who had behaved superbly on the Dalmatian front during the Cretan Wars, but they were ignored. Only once did the popular rejection carry any weight. This happened in 1676 with the candidacy of Giovanni Sagredo, who already had the votes of most of the forty-one electors. His rivals hired sixty boatmen to shout, "Don't elect Sagredo, we don't want him," and much else. They made a great noise, throwing stones and even the loaves set out for the celebrations. The Great Council, overestimating the protests, replaced the forty-one voters with others. They elected Alvise Contarini, an eminent diplomat. He was not among the candidates, but fortunately proved worthy of the office. The voting was followed by the doge's coronation, which developed out of the ceremony of 1071 ( described later), with the fundamental variation of the elimination of the popular assembly and with various adaptations to the times. It was no longer customary to transport the chosen doge from his home to St. Mark's. The successful candidate would hear mass in the oratory of the Doge's Palace. He would descend to the basilica and ascend the pulpit to the right of the congregation. Here, the oldest of his forty-one voters would present him to the people (until 1423 with the formula "We have elected him doge, if it pleases you," then the formula became only "We have elected him doge"), ' 5 followed by a eulogy. After this, the doge would speak briefly. As he descended from

THE DOGE OF VENICE

13

ANONYMOUS Diagram of votes cast in the election of Doge Carlo Ruzzini

(1732-35), 18th-19th centuries Museo Correr, Venice

the pulpit, the primicerio (chief of the clergy of the church) would hand him the banner with the lion of St. Mark and speak some ritual words. Then the doge would get into the pozzetto for his tour of the piazza, another Byzantine custom. After this he returned to the palace, where he swore the oath of office and received from the youngest councillor the camauro and from the oldest councillor the corno or cap: not the one for everyday use, but the beautiful zoia, kept in St. Mark's treasury. He wore it only once a year, on his solemn visit to the monastery of San Zaccaria, and it preceded him on a sumptuous cushion in official processions. Then the doge again showed himself to the people between the two red columns of the Loggia Foscara, before entering the Sala del Piovego, where he was reminded that here his body would be displayed when he died. Ducal funerals were impressive, of such complexity, splendor, and drama that in the mid-sixteenth century it was decided to replace the doge's body with a wax effigy. Their culmination was the salto del morto or "dead man's leap. " The striking procession, with the doge's relatives wearing special mourning garments with tall hoods, the state authorities, the patriarch with the clergy, the guilds, and confraternities, would halt before St. Mark's basilica. Here, the coffin would be raised nine times by sailors crying "Mercy!" Then the procession would move off to the burial place.16 Despite the grandeur of the honors paid him, the doge's political powers were limited. He could rarely make individual decisions. The true custodians of power were the Minor Council ( the six ducal councillors who, with the doge and the three heads of the Quarantia Criminal, formed the Signory), the Great Council (Maggior Consiglio), the Council of Pregadi or Senate, the Council of Ten ( Consiglio di Dieci), and the Collegio. This last was the driving force behind the immense machinery of the state. It consisted of sixteen members: six were called Savi Grandi, or Savi del Consiglio dei Pregadi, with a general competence, five were competent for the mainland ( Savi di Terraferma ), five, called Savi agli Ordini, for navigation. The preeminence of this collegial decision-making system was achieved through the mechanism of the doge's oath of office (promissione), introduced in the twelfth century, perhaps as early

MARINO ZORZI

ANONYMOUS

~

,•-·

s

Doge Andrea Dandolo oath of office, 14th century Museo Correr, Venice

as the election of Pietro Polani as part of the development of the municipal institution. The first known oath of office is that of Enrico Dandolo. '7 Each doge swore to respect increasingly numerous and complex clauses, drafted by a special magistracy, called the Correttori della Promissione Ducale. This was renewed at each election, to foresee and prohibit any possible individual initiative by the doge. Then, after the dogeship of Agostino Barbarigo, who was considered to have exceeded his powers, the magistracy of the Inquisitors over the deceased doge was established in I 501. Their task was to examine his acts and judge whether they were contrary to the laws or had damaged the state. And it was no formality. Even though the Inquisitors discovered very little, some unauthorized expenditure and too many gifts received, Barbarigo's heirs were fined the substantial sum of 7,600 ducats. And the heirs of Leonardo Loredan, the doge who had held the ship of state firm in the troubled years of the League of Cambrai, had to pay 2,700 ducats for minor offenses, after paying 90, 000 ducats out of his own pocket in the city's defense. 18 It would be a mistake, however, to consider the doges as mere figureheads . They chaired all the principal councils. Their voice, rich in experience and authority, could guide votes, influence the agenda and suggest the appropriate measures. This gave them considerable weight, all the greater the more astute, skillful and well liked they were by the council members. The importance of this last factor was seen at the time of Andrea Gritti, held to be too authoritarian. The council systematically rejected his proposals and the doge adopted the tactic of putting forward ideas that were the exact opposite of what he wanted. The councillors would vote against him and so he got his way ( until he revealed the ruse). The doge voted in the councils, acting as tie-breaker. And his office was for life. This was clearly an important prerogative, shared only by the procurators of St. Mark and the Grand Chancellor, while the other magistracies, even the most powerful, lasted from six months to two years, rotating continually from one to another. Then the doge had one important power. He could propose laws on his own initiative, without the participation of other organs of government. He also had a series

TH E DOGE OF VENICE

DOMENICO ROBUSTI Doge Marino Grimani, 1600-1625 Cincinnati Art Musewn, Ohio

of duties that made him the animator of the activities of all the organs of state. Each month, he had to visit all the offices in the palace to check on their proper functioning, and every week the judicial offices. Twice a month, he had to summon the savi who were Magistrates of the Waters and oversee their work (to preserve the lagoon, so important to the republic). He had to supervise the collection of taxes, periodically summoning the officers in charge; he had to control the administration of criminal justice to ensure preventive detention was not prolonged unduly. Every three months, he visited the Arsenale; each month, he had to receive the decisions and measures taken by the magistrates in charge of the lagoon, the Arsenale and the food supply, and then report them to the Collegio dei Savi. A series of tasks that made the doge the regulator of public activities and placed him at the center of the complex organization of the state. Sometimes a party or a current of opinion supported the doge, meaning he could count on those sharing his political or ideological sympathies. An example was Francesco Foscari, who was backed by the many who saw great advantages in expanding Venetian possessions in mainland Italy, and even hoped to acquire Milan, a possibility at the time. Another was Cristoforo Moro, a member of the party who urged the necessity of waging war on the Turks, who were making dangerous inroads in the Greek world, threatening the Venetian dominions and Christendom itself. This did not prevent Vettor Capello from imposing the will of the Council on him in 1464. Once the crusade against the Turks had been declared, the doge refused to set off for Ancona to join the Christian forces summoned by Pope Pius II. His excuses-he was old and sickly-were coldly dismissed. It was his duty to embark. In Ancona, he found the pope dying and no military forces other than the Venetians. Sixteen troubled years of warfare followed and ended badly. Another doge who had his way, two centuries later, was Girolamo Dona, head of the "young patricians," who asserted the republic's full freedom of action as opposed to the "old patricians," aligned with the CounterReformation promoted by the papacy and the imperial house of Austria. At other times, great wealth, important family ties, and numerous clients gave a doge greater freedom; but then his action might be blocked by a political opponent enforcing the restrictions, or some strict guardian of the law. An example was Renier Zen, one of the three heads of the Council of Ten. He waged a ruthless parliamentary battle against the very wealthy Doge Giovanni I Corner, who had granted too many honors and powers to his children. There may have been a trace of personal enmity in his anger, but it cost him dearly, because the doge's younger son Giorgio had him stabbed. He recovered, and Giorgio was sentenced and banished for ordering the attempt. He died shortly thereafter, assasinated. By contrast, Agostino Barbarigo overcame all opposition. Majestically bearded, authoritarian and haughty, he held out his hand to be kissed at audiences and imposed his will regardless of the

16

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oath of office, without anyone having the strength or sense of purpose to oppose him. But after his death, his heirs had to pay a large sum to the treasury. The fact that the doge was elected as the culmination of a long life in the service of the state had one obvious consequence. In the last three centuries, the doges were all old. Their average age in the fifteenth century was sixty-nine, seventy-five in the sixteenth, seventy-two in the seventeenth, and sixty-seven in the eighteenth. Many were in their eighties. The oldest were Antonio Grimani and Nicolo da Ponte, both eighty-seven. In the previous centuries, the oldest had been Enrico Dandolo, who was eighty-five. In some cases, a candidate could boast truly outstanding merits. This was the case of Andrea Gritti, a merchant in Constantinople in his youth, a master of many languages, the great organizer of Venetian resistance after the defeat of Agnadello, the brave soldier who reconquered Padua in 1509. The king of France, who took him prisoner when he annexed Brescia, honored him and treated him as a friend. Antonio Grimani was also a great merchant in Constantinople, then a very popular politician and in 1494, he conquered the ports of Puglia. In 1499, he was defeated by the Turks at the naval battle of Zonchio, near Lepanto. He was tried and exiled to Cherso ( Cres) in Dalmatia, then fled to his cardinal son in Rome and returned during the war waged against Venice by the League of Cambrai. Finally, he was elected doge at eighty-seven. And Sebastiano Venier, who won the great Battle of Lepanto, was clearly worthy to be doge. Not all the doges were so remarkable, yet all were respectable and eminent, including many outstanding figures. Culture was a quality much prized, ensuring the ability to speak clearly and elegantly in public, not to crowds but in the various councils, as well as to foreign ambassadors and distinguished visitors. Renaissance humanism, in which the nobles were deeply versed by the early fifteenth century, proved very beneficial. They understood its intrinsic value as well as its usefulness

MARINO ZORZI

GABRIEL BELLA The Coronation of the Doge on the Giants ' Staircase after 1779- before 1792 Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Venice

in diplomacy. Among the early doges, learning was not required; but those, such as Andrea Dandolo, who possessed it were held in high regard. Even Foscari, though not highly cultivated, loved to converse in the afternoons with the learned. Later, the average level of erudition among the doges rose markedly. Francesco Dona was steeped in classical literature and had a remarkable memory. Nicolo da Ponte earned a degree in Padua, gave public lectures on philosophical subjects, and was very learned in theology. Leonardo Dona had also studied extensively, which proved useful in the serious disputes with the papacy, which were theological as well as political. He played a prominent part in them together with Nicolo Contarini and the republic's great legal consultant Paolo Sarpi. Francesco Contarini studied law, philosophy, and Latin and Greek literature in Padua. Nicolo Contarini, who became doge after Dona, wrote that to him books were, "after God, all our good and all our peace of mind in this life." Other qualities greatly prized were kindness, humanity, and generosity. Nicolo Marcello was benevolent, kind to all. The same was written of Andrea Vendramin, that he was "endowed with riches, yet pleasant and very courteous." Marco Barbarigo was "just and wise." His brother Agostino, who succeeded him, was less engaging. Francesco Venier, despite his weak and sickly body, was an impressive speaker by his grave and gentle manner. Sebastiano Venier had very different gifts, being capable and honest, but irascible. This appeared in his altercations with Don John of Austria on the eve of the Battle of Lepanto. Marcantonio Memmo was said to be cheerful and good-natured. Francesco Contarini was sanguine, amiable, and affable. Then the position called for great experience. The commonest cursus honorum was in the embassies and armies in mainland Italy or overseas, but some came from naval careers. This was the case of Pietro Mocenigo, who defeated the Turks in 1472, and Giovanni Bembo, who fought bravely at Lepanto and against the ferocious Uskoks (Croats) protected by Austria, being wounded several times. Another was Antonio Priuli, who, when younger, was sopracomito or captain of galleys. Sebastiano Venier, the victor of Lepanto, had always held civilian positions, until he unexpectedly came to be appointed Captain General at Sea. Many doges had been merchants, since Venice had been a trading nation from the earliest centuries. This was the case of Antonio Grimani and Andrea Gritti. Nicolo Tron made his fortune as a merchant in Rhodes. Nicolo Marcello traded successfully in Damascus and always retained an interest in finance. As doge, he dealt with this aspect of public administration with such "honesty and diligence" that the treasury "seemed never capable of being emptied." Andrea Vendramin amassed great wealth in Alexandria. He also owned a soap factory, and being of a newly ennobled family, one of his denigrators commented, "The forty-one have chosen a grocer as doge." He proved an excellent prince. Leonardo Loredan traded in Africa. Pietro Loredan had spent his whole life in commerce when news

THE DOGE OF VENICE

GABRIEL BELLA

The Doges Funeral at the Church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo after 1779-before 1792 Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Venice

of his election arrived unexpectedly, since the forty-one voters had been unable to agree on any of the candidates. He was astonished, being eighty-five years old, but he proved up to the task. Nicolo da Ponte grew rich as a merchant when young. Alvise I Mocenigo, by contrast, despised commerce and Marino Grimani, already very rich, had no interest in it. By the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it was no longer customary for the nobility to be merchants. They continued to invest in profitable commercial opportunities, while favoring agriculture, but most did not engage in trade directly. One who had engaged in trade in his youth was another doge of the Mocenigo family, Alvise II, in the mid-seventeenth century, who traded through his factor Marino d' Andria. All the doges were religious, some to excess. Marcantonio Trevisan died prematurely from excessive fasting and penance, unlike Giovanni Bembo, who always indulged his love of salami even in Lent. So far, we have met the reigning doges down to the early seventeenth century. A harsh century, it opened with the city being placed under papal interdict. The offensive by the Habsburgs of both Spain and Austria in concert with the Holy See went

20

beyond papal bulls and diplomatic intrigues, becoming open warfare. In 1615, the War of Gradisca broke out with Austria. Venice managed to limit operations to the Friuli area. The future Doge Nicolo Contarini distinguished himself and the war ended well for Venice, as Austria stopped the incursion of the Uskok pirates, but the threat of the Habsburgs was looming. In 1618, the city suppressed a plot

Duchy of Castro. In 1645, a Turkish attack marked the start of the grueling Cretan War, waged by sea and land for twenty-five years. In this dark period, the city returned in two cases to the ancient custom, abandoned since the days of Enrico Dandolo, of entrusting supreme command to the doge. The first was Francesco Erizzo, Provveditoregenerale in campo (Commander-in-chief) during the war for Mantua and Captain General at Sea, who was required to control Spanish movements in the Adriatic and the Ionian Seas. Finally, he was made doge. In spite of his age, he was considered for

led by the Marquis of Bedmar, the Spanish ambassador to Venice, who planned to ~ass acre the nobles

command in the war against the Turks; he accepted enthusiastically, but the effort and tension weak-

and destroy the republic. In 1630, a local war against Spain for the succession to the Duchy ofMantua ended in defeat, while plague was ravaging Venice. The Senate made a vow to build the basilica della Salute once the terrible epidemic ended. In 1643, a guerrilla war was fought against the pope over the

ened him so much that he began to wander in his mind, uttering phrases like "Give me the weapons, never delay, we will win this time." He died soon after, leaving to the republic his heart, which was buried in St. Mark's basilica.

MARI NO ZORZI

THE DOGE OF VENICE

21

GIOVANNI BELLINI Doge Leonardo Loredan, r501 -r504 The National Gallery, London

The second was Francesco Morosini, the conqueror of Morea, elected doge as he was waging war against the Turks. His victory was overshadowed by the destruction of the Parthenon in Athens. On returning triumphant to Venice, he had little time to enjoy the dogeship, because he was asked to resume supreme command of the forces at war. This time, he was able to do little in this capacity and died at Nauplia about a year later, aged seventy-six. It is notable that the nobility then prudently passed a law prohibiting future doges from being given supreme military command. If Morosini had a weakness, it was vanity, which the republic satisfied with great celebrations, a bronze bust and a triumphal arch in the Doge's Palace. But the grandiose project that the architect Antonio Gaspari had planned for him, of transforming the whole facade of the church of San Vidal into a monument to his memory, was never carried out. Francesco Molin was a warrior. He pursued a naval career, was an admiral on Lake Garda against Spain and a governor in Dalmatia. Made Provveditore generale da mar on the outbreak of the Cretan War, with the powers of Captain General, he fell ill in Corfu and had to give up his command. He was then elected doge. His manners were blunt and soldierly, and he loved wine. On his death a satire circulated, punning on his surname ("Molin" suggests the word for a mill): "Hear a great wonder: he ground not flour but a stein, / Since he was a mill, not of wind, not of water, but of wine." The other seventeenth-century doges, by contrast, had held civil offices, governorships, and embassies with honor before being elected, and had in common one asset: considerable wealth. Domenico Contarini was an exception to the first of these rules. He had never been interested in public life and was elected doge without even being a candidate. The forty-one voters could not agree on any of the four names proposed and someone suggested the elderly Contarini, who was living quietly in his villa. He was immediately elected, a solution considered provisional but that actually lasted fifteen years. He died aged ninety-four. It must be said, however, that a recent study by Dorit Raines questions this version of events . The future doge had patiently built up a network 21

of contacts over the years to secure his election, with every vote predicted and calculated. The previous failed elections were, it seems, a kind of preparatory bluff. Pietro Loredan a century earlier was a similar case. Perhaps then too, the mechanism was the same, and the supposed surprise a formality. Contarini, however, was greatly esteemed and loved; the French ambassador Alexandre Toussaint Limojon de Saint-Didier said that he had often heard young patricians referring to him as "that adorable old man." His successor, Nicolo Sagredo, was also very charming. He was not at all learned, but he was skilled in political matters and a "gentle companion." Marcantonio Giustinian, by contrast, was cultured, very pious, and charitable, to the point of being nicknamed San Zuanin. Rather than doge, he would have liked to become a monk in San

T HE DOGE OF VENICE

23

Giorgio Maggiore. Alvise II Mocenigo, elected by the merits of two of his brothers who died in the Cretan War, was a sort of lay monk, who shunned all contact with women. Silvestro Valier, the son of Doge Bertucci, was splendid and lavish. He persuaded the council to agree to his wife's triumphal installation as dogaressa. Among his successors, special mention should be made of Carlo Ruzzini, the negotiator of the victorious Treaty of Karlowitz and the unfortunate Treaty of Passarowitz, and Marco Foscarini, a diplomat and cultivated scholar, author of a famous history of Venetian literature (Della letteratura veneziana ), published in 1752. And there was also a brave seaman, Alvise III Mocenigo, victorious in various episodes of the Marean War against the Turks in both the Aegean and Dalmatia .

•

THE HISTORICAL EVOLUTION So far we have been looking at the doges from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century, when the office had already taken the form well known to those familiar with Venice, its art and history. Now we need to explore its origins and see how it evolved into the full constitutional maturity that we have described. This history goes far back into the past, to the late Roman world. There is an unbroken line connecting the doge to the former magistrate of the Eastern Roman Empire, the magister militum, then the dux (the duke or doge), who from the sixth century AD governed, under the exarch of Ravenna, a remnant of the ancient Roman province of venetia et Histria. This region, retaken a few years earlier by the Emperor Justinian from the Goths who had occupied it, was then invaded in 568-569 by the Lombards (a Germanic people). By the end of the century, only Padua, Oderzo, Altino, and a strip of land on the edge of the Venetian lagoon, and the lagoon itself with its islands still belonged to the Eastern Empire. When Padua fell in 602, the imperial command moved to Opitergium (Oderzo ). When that stronghold fell in 639 together with Altino, it was moved to Eraclea, later called Cittanova ( near Grado). At the time, there were numerous settlements in the lagoon, which in 727 Emperor Leo III described as "the province of Venetia preserved by God. " They included Grado, where in 569 the patriarch of Aquileia, Paolino, had taken refuge, fleeing from the Lombards, Metamauco, the future capital (its name remains in the village of Malamocco ), Torcello, Chioggia, and various others, about thirty in all. Many of the inhabitants of the mainland, probably from the higher classes, who suf22

fered most from the barbarians, took refuge from Lombard rule there. Some islands in the lagoon, Olivolo and Rivus altus (Rialto ), were not particularly important. They were certainly already populated, not deserted as tradition has it, serving as staging points on the inland waterway connecting

MARJNO ZORZI

Ravenna to Aquileia. 3 They were fortified, 24 but it could never have been imagined that they were 2

the sites where Venice, a city with such an extraordinary destiny, would arise. The tribunes were the commanders of individual military units and forts. They reported to the magister militum and usually came from the families of local landowners. We know the names of only two of the magistri militum. One was Maurizio, who in 639 began building the church of Santa Maria Assunta in Torcello, rebuilt in the eleventh century. A plaque commemorates him together with the exarch Isacco, his superior, and Heraclius, the reigning emperor of the Eastern Empire.25 The second was Marcello, who between 712 and 727 signed an agreement defining the boundaries between Cittanova and the neighboring Lombard territory. 26 According to an important source, the Venetian Chronicle of John the Deacon, written shortly after the year moo, in 697 a dux, Paolo, was elected by the people to govern the province. All the subsequent chroniclers based their work on this chronicle, and Paolo, later called Paolo Lucio or Paoluccio, with the added late surname of Anafesto, has the honor of opening the traditional list of doges. But nothing is known about him, and an election in such ancient times, when the appointments were made in Constantinople or Ravenna, seems impossible. It is more likely that the chronicler John the Deacon backdated the first ducal election to confirm the theory, dear to the Venetians, that the community in the lagoon was independent from the start. The second dux of tradition is one Marcello, later given the surname Tegalliano. He might be the magister militum mentioned above who was proclaimed dux; or the first dux might be Orso ( called Ipato, because he was awarded the honorific title of hypatos by the emperor), the third in the traditional series, elected in the dramatic events of the year 727. The decrees issued by Emperor Leo III had reached Italy, prohibiting the cult of religious images and ordering their destruction. Pope Gregory II refused to obey, followed by the imperial subjects in the rest ofltaly. "Spurning the exarch's orders, they everywhere chose a leader of their own. " 7 In the lagoons as elsewhere, the 2

exercitus with its soldiers rebelled and acclaimed their own duke at Eraclea: Marcello, or more likely Orso. The tensions between Constantinople and the Italian cities then ceased and the Venetian province returned to imperial obedience. But in reality, it retained great freedom of action, which grew steadily. The capture of Ravenna by the Lombards and the consequent suppression of the exarchate meant that the duke answered not to a sort of viceroy near at hand, but directly to the emperor; and the basileus was far away, unconcerned with Italy and tied up on numerous other fronts. Fierce struggles disrupted life in the lagoons. Orso was murdered in 737; for five years there were no dukes, but there was one magistri militum per year. The last of these was blinded and deposed. He was succeeded by Deusdedit, the son of Orso, who moved the capital of the duchy

T HE DOGE OF V EN ICE

nine doges only eight sed and blinded (a cruel place in the assembly of nly the first counted, the weight was growing. The ith their rule, as emperury, the Particiaco in oups and assassinations y and the rising powdom, which disliked chy. Its ruling class was but some now looked to prevail, when the ablished the status quo ult of a victory against alled by the Greeks). In Charles, the Germanic stern power. The Doge om Malamocco to Rialto. associated with the e: the sacred heist of pt, in 828 and brought ession of a relic of such urrected patriarchate St. Mark, but did not Until the middle of the tenth century, the duchy's membership of the Byzantine Empire was undisputed. This was partly due to the confused situation of the Carolingian Empire and the Frankish Kingdom of Italy, reflecting a revival of the power of the Eastern Empire. The situation in the Adriatic was troubled. Slav piracy was aggravated by Arab corsairs. The emperors urged the Venetians to act, offering them the usual honorific titles of hypatos and spatharios. The dukes responded, devoting resources and efforts to defend Adriatic navigation, and at times meeting with senous reverses.

MARINO ZORZI

All the same, trade flourished, with the ducal house setting the example. Doge Giustiniano Particiaco's will of 829 lists extensive landed estates in the duchy but also at Pola (Pula) and Treviso, together with gold, silver, and even spices. Then it mentions large sums of money investments (laboratorii solidi) that would yield a profit, provided the ships made landfall safely. This shows that they were invested in ventures overseas subject to the usual risks. It reveals a quite different mindset from that of most feudal overlords, who saw finance, trade, and investments as alien and beneath them. In his will of 853, Orso, bishop of Olivolo bequeathed lands and houses, as well as a bag of precious pepper ( uno sacco de pipere) purchased in the Levant. When Pietro IV Candiano became doge in 959, Venice began to identify itself more closely with the West. The Roman-Germanic Empire was growing in power under the leadership of the house of Saxony, and Venice had to come to terms with it. Previous doges had always tried to preserve their friendship with mainland powers, without failing in fidelity to Constantinople, but Pietro IV definitely favored the emperor Otto I, whose prestige was immense after his final victory over the Hungarians at Lechfeld. Otto meant to rule Italy, not just in name. He descended on it in 951 and returned in 962 to have himself crowned Holy Roman Emperor. Venice was part of his plans for supremacy. Pietro IV was also personally involved in events in Italy. He married Waldrada, the daughter of Hubert, duke of Spoleto, and the sister of Hugh, Margrave of Tuscany, so he had ties to the highest feudal nobility. Otto I granted him Isola d'Istria as a fief and supported Grado against Aquileia to show his friendship. What Otto desired was essentially to annex Venice to his empire and award it to Pietro Candiano as his fief, and the doge seemed ready to follow him. With him, terms peculiar to the feudal world were introduced. A document from 971, dealing with trade with the Saracens, refers to the doge as seniore nostro, "our lord." 9 But the Eastern Empire was also enjoying a period of power and splendor. Otto was powerful and close at hand, but Constantinople had the strength to enforce the ancient ties. In 971, an imperial commission arrived in Venice with an order to stop the 2

sale of strategic materials (wood, iron) to Muslims, threatening to burn any ships that disobeyed the order. Eighty Venetian notables signed a document submitting to the imperious demand. The atmosphere became heated. The doge acted harshly; the Byzantine party grew stronger but it found no better way to prevail than to burn down the Doge's Palace in 976. The fire also destroyed the church of St. Mark and the houses as far as Santa Maria del Giglio. The doge surrendered but was slain together with his young son. The most eminent figure in the victorious party, Pietro Orseolo, very upright, religious, and sensitive to monastic spiritual values, became doge. But the struggle continued. In 978, at night, without even telling his beloved wife Felicia or his son, the doge took ship to Sant'Ilario, near today's Fusina. From there, he continued on horseback to Vercelli and then the Benedictine monastery of Cuxa in the Pyrenees.

THE DOGE OF VENI C E

TITIAN Doge Andrea Gritti, 1546-1548 National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

Pious explanations, that he was obeying the strength of his vocation (he would die in the monastery after a life of piety and be proclaimed a saint), are unconvincing. The Candiano party was bent on recovering power. Vitale, the patriarch of Grado, the son of the slain doge, went to the court of Saxony seeking revenge. Otto II, son of Otto I, was now emperor. Pietro Orseolo was the first target; the fire that had led to Pietro IV's death had started from some houses he owned. Evidently, Orseolo had calculated that seeking shelter in a remote monastery was the best way to save himself and avoid further bloodshed. The winning party placed another Candiano, Vitale, on the throne. But after a year, the new doge became a monk in Sant'Ilario and died soon after. The struggle between the factions grew fiercer. The new doge, Tribuno Menio, failed to find a solution. Otto II, at the urging of the Candiano party, besieged the lagoons but died unexpectedly in 983. The siege was lifted, but there was no peace in the city. Blood continued to flow. In 991, the doge withdrew to a monastery. He was succeeded by Pietro II Orseolo, the son of the monk of Cuxa. With him the internal struggles subsided. Otto III, still very young, did not aspire to dominate Venice; and Venice definitively turned to Constantinople, the sea, and trade with the Levant. In 992, the great emperors of the East, Basil II and Constantine VIII, issued a chrysobull ("golden decree") reducing the tariffs for Venetian merchants. The rapprochement was complete. The doge, nevertheless, maintained good relations with the West; moreover, ties of friendship bound him to the young Saxon emperor. In Verona in 996, the emperor baptized the doge's son, who took his name (Ottone). In roor, the emperor decided to hold secret talks with the doge, probably about the situation in Hungary and the Adriatic, after the events of the previous year, visiting him incognito. He set off unseen from Pomposa and sailed by night to the Venetian monastery of San Giorgio, where they met. In the year I OOO, the doge had accomplished a memorable feat by defeating the Slav pirates after a glorious raid along the coasts of Dalmatia. The Latin cities of the coast welcomed him triumphantly, acknowledging him as the supreme authority in the Adriatic. With imperial consent, he had taken the title of Dux Veneticorum et Dalmaticorum. The action must clearly have been agreed with Basil II, then engaged in the last phase of his mortal duel with the kingdom of Bulgaria supported by the Slavs of the coast. In roo2, Orseolo rescued the Byzantine city of Bari from its Saracen besiegers. The union with Constantinople was fully confirmed, with control of the Adriatic being entrusted to Venice. The city had fully regained its maritime vocation. In roo8, Pietro II died and was succeeded by Otto. Lacking his father's shrewdness, he was deposed in a coup. He returned to the throne soon after, but another coup or rising forced him into a second exile. A nobleman, Pietro Centranico, became doge. Four years later, he was deposed and Otto, who had been living in Constantinople, was recalled. While awaiting his return, the patriarch Orso Orseolo ruled the duchy, but Otto died in Constantinople. Another Orseolo, Domenico, was

MARINO ZORZI

raised to the throne, but just twenty-four hours later, he was forced to abdicate and leave the city, the shortest dogeship in history. The party opposed to the Orseolo family emerged victorious. Its leader, Domenico Flabanico, was elected doge. The continuous coups took place, it should be stressed, without bloodshed. The ruling class, which administered power with the doge as its representative, had obviously decided that the political struggle could be conducted without the extreme means used earlier. From this time on, violent civil strife was limited to a few isolated episodes. And it is significant that the Orseolo family continued to live peacefully in Venice and played a part in public life, without becoming prominent, until the early fifteenth century. The period when the chiefs of the defeated party were murdered or had their eyes put out was at an end. In another important act, Flabanico issued a law forbidding the doge from naming a successor, so preventing the formation of a ducal dynasty. In embryo, it was that ducal oath of office that, from the late twelfth century, every elected doge had to take, limiting his powers. And it is notable that not even a triumphant doge like Pietro II Orseolo managed to establish an enduring dynasty. This was certainly the will of the populus, in which the mediocres and minores counted for little, but they witnessed a great event: the election of the doge, arranged by the primates. We have a lively account of Domenico Selvo's election in ICfJI. A cleric who was present, Domenico Rina, described the crowd that came from all over the duchy by a great variety of watercrafts to the Lido, near the monastery of San Nicolo, where the new doge was acclaimed with the words Dominum Silvum volumus et laudamus. Then the nobles raised him on their shoulders and carried him to their ships. During the crossing to St. Mark's, the clergy and people sang Te deum laudamus and Kyrie eleison. On arriving at the church, he walked barefoot, prostrated himself in keeping with Byzantine custom, gave thanks to God and St. Mark, was given the baculus or scepter, the symbol of power, then went to the palace to receive oaths of fidelity from the people,3° to whom he gave gifts. Selva had to deal with a new problem: the Normans who, after taking over much of southern Italy, had landed in Dalmatia. The danger to Venice was clear. If they controlled both shores of the Adriatic, the Normans could close down navigation. Selva managed to drive them out in ICfJS- ICfJ6. But in ro8r-ro82, Robert Guiscard attacked again. Selva won a concession from Emperor Alexius I Cornnenus that would prove immensely important in Venetian and European history. In exchange for his help, he won exemption from all taxes or tariffs in much of the empire. The Venetian merchants enjoyed a privileged position denied to other Latins and even the Greeks themselves. This multiplied Venetian wealth, but also stirred imperial discontent, the envy of competitors and the hostility of the Greeks, with very serious consequences. From this time on, it can be said that Venice's subjection to the empire, already weakened by its growing independence, was finally at an end. The Venetian doge

MAR.INO ZORZ I

was not a vassal but an ally. Yet formally, he was still a Byzantine dignitary, and Alexius conferred on him the lofty new title of protosebastos. Selvo's predecessor, Domenico Contarini, had also received high imperial titles. It should be added that Byzantine titles tended to become devalued as they were spread about in increasing numbers, forcing the court to keep inventing new ones. Despite this success, in rn84, Selvo was defeated in a sea battle off Durazzo (Durres ). He was forced to abdicate (but not put to death) and withdrew from public life. Vitale Falier, victorious over the Normans at Butrint, became doge. His successor Vitale I Michie! had to reckon with an event that completely altered international relations: the First Crusade. He joined it belatedly and without enthusiasm, aware that any breakdown in the balance of power in the Mediterranean, already very favorable to Venice, would only prove damaging. But then the Venetians won some remarkable successes, under the guidance of their able warrior doges. After Michie! came Ordelaf Falier, son of Doge Vitale, Domenico Michie!, Pietro Polani, son-in-law of his predecessor, and Vitale II Michie!. The succession of members of the same family may seem like a return to the hereditary transmission of the office. But at the time of Pietro Polani, there was a development of great importance that led in the opposite direction. In n43, the doge was joined by a council of six sapientes or sages, whose name had already appeared in a treatise of 1141 . For a long time, there had been judges who assisted the doge in administering justice, the officials of the curia ducis, but the members of the Consilium sapientum had a general competence. They were elected by the people ( as a law of 1163 shows) and the doge could not act without their consent. This was the birth of communal government, which would gradually absorb the ducal office. As a result of this transition, the elected doge no longer received the symbolic scepter of rule, but the banner of St. Mark. After Polani's death, his successor Vitale II Michie! ruled successfully for some years, before meeting a grave setback. Emperor Manuel Comnenus had become impatient of the privileges and, it seems, the arrogance of the Venetians. His father John Comnenus had already abolished the tariff exemption granted by Alexius Comnenus to Domenico Selvo, but the Venetian fleet commanded by Domenico Michie! wreaked such damage on the Aegean islands that the emperor prudently withdrew the measure. Manuel decided to deliver a crushing blow. In great secrecy, he planned and carried out with extraordinary efficiency the simultaneous arrest, on the same day (March 12, n71) throughout the empire, of all the Venetians that could be captured, and freed them only after seizing all their possessions. The doge failed to respond adequately. He returned to Venice and there, near San Zaccaria, he was assassinated by Marco Casulo, not a common criminal, but a political adversary, who had decided to resolve their differences with the methods of the period before the year rnoo.

THE DOGE OF VENICE

32

MARINO ZORZI

JACOPO ROBUST! CALLED TINTORETTO Doge Pietro Loredan, 156;7-1570 National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

the popular assembly, e development of the is dogeship. In II73 ortant in the constitutia appeared, a body that ee of specialized know lg in economic matters ce. The fame of Venice, as troubled struggle between iani having the honor in es of the Italian cities to . Four voters had to aggiore or Great

onstantinople, supn, it was the result of a any have claimed), but Empire. Contrary to the e to his age (ninety-seven rnrnent, the signing of list of limitations culmit ordinata" ("whatever fDoge Sebastiano, was elected without controversy. Possessing great wealth and prestige, he was the right man to govern the new empire and worthily bore the title of "lord of the fourth part and a half of the Roman Empire." It was appropriate to have a strong figure at the helm, and even his very brief oath of office placed few limitations on his powers (except the obligation to respect the Council's will). Relations between the Venetians in Constantinople, who had elected one of themselves, Pietro Zeno, to be governor with full power of the conquered lands, and the government of the mother country needed to be clarified. There was even talk of moving the capital to Constantinople. A written proposal to do so was

THE DOGE OF VENICE

33

FRANCESCO GUARD! The Doge at the Church of the Salute, 1766-1770 Musee du Louvre, Paris

attributed to the doge, but it appears to have been a forgery. At any rate, the plan, if there was one, came to nothing and power remained in Venice. It was a period of euphoria. The whole city was projected toward the Levant. Many Venetians settled in the colonies, 3,500 in Crete. Many ecclesiastical benefices were taken over by Venetians, and the first Latin patriarch of Constantinople was Venetian. In 1229, Pietro Ziani retired, due to age and weariness, and a difficult succession followed. The oldest and most illustrious families wanted one of their own, Marino Dandolo; the families that had arisen more recently had their representative in Giacomo Tiepolo. The voters were divided into two equal groups, with twenty voting for Dandolo and twenty for Tiepolo. It was decided, uniquely, to settle the matter by drawing lots and Tiepolo became doge. Three days later, he wished to visit his ailing predecessor, who refused to receive him. Clearly, he resented the choice made by fate. Tiepolo intended to bring new men into the ruling class. He had the Statutes of Venetian Laws published in five books to clarify the law, limiting the discretionary power of judges, and managed to govern with a wide margin of freedom of action. He achieved all this even though the opposition had made him swear an oath of office hedged in by all kinds of rules in an attempt to control him. Venice, triumphant in the East, found itself facing a very serious problem in the West, a renewal of the issue that had dominated political life before the year moo. A great power was growing up in Europe, that of Frederick II, emperor of Germany and king of Sicily, the wonder of the world by his extraordinary gifts, who meant to make his title as king of Italy effective. To do this, he intended to subject the free cities of Lombardy and Venetia to his rule. Frederick tried to co-opt Giacomo Tiepolo to his policies. In 1232, he came to Venice bearing gifts, but left having gained nothing. A powerful state on the mainland could stifle Venice, barring access to its Italian and German markets, and might endanger its freedom. The powerful city that dominated the Levant did not even hold nearby Mestre on the Veneto mainland.

34

majority of the patricians, or at least those that counted. Three patricians went to the emperor, perhaps without the doge's knowledge, to propose an agreement that was eventually ratified. The doge's commitment to mainland Italy had lost sight of the Levant, the possibilities it offered, its great commerce and profits. Once again Venice chose the way of the sea.

Disappointed, the emperor allied himself with Ezzelino da Romano, who briefly occupied the whole of Veneto. Tiepolo threw himself into the fight. His son Pietro played an important part in the anti-imperial resistance and was taken prisoner at the Battle of Cortenuova, in 1237, where

On Tiepolo's death in 1249, one of the three ambassadors who had made the agreement with Frederick II, Marino Morosini, was elected doge. He was soon succeeded by another of the three ambassadors, Renier Zen (Ranieri Zeno). Frederick II died and Venice contributed to Ezzelino's final defeat, enabling the cities of Venetia to regain their freedom and make favorable pacts with Venice. Commercial expansion continued in the Levant. But in 126r, the city's empire in the East received a severe setback: the Latin Empire fell, Constantinople was restored to Greece and the

Frederick II triumphed. The emperor had him deported to Cremona and then Puglia; and in Trani,

Venetian settlers fled to the island the Venetians called Negroponte (Euboea). The revolt was the

in 1240, in response to a Venetian naval expedition that had devastated the Apulian coast, he had him hanged "at the top of a tall tower by the sea."3' Sorrow and the desire for revenge made the doge strengthen the military campaign, but in 1245, a sudden change of course was decided by the

work of the Genoese, Venice's eternal rivals at sea. War followed. The situation improved in 1265, when the Greek Emperor Michael VIII Palaeologus, worried by the excessive Genoese power, reinstated the Venetians in the empire. But of course Venice no longer enjoyed its former privileges.

MARINO ZORZI

THE DOGE OF VEN ICE

35

BERNARDO STROZZI Doge Francesco Erizzo, ea. 1635 Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice

As the affluence created by the Latin Empire of Constantinople faded, many merchants with fewer resources were left in dire straits, while the craftworkers, growing in wealth and number in a rich and populous city like Venice, aspired to greater representation on its governing bodies. There was a need for change and in 1268 the opportunity arose: a new ducal election, following the death of Renier Zen. There were two candidates, Marino Dandolo, a representative of the principal families, determined to maintain the status quo, and Lorenzo Tiepolo, the son of Giacomo, responsive to the demand for renewal. For the first time the highly complicated system set up by Rozier (Ruggero) Zorzi, which remained in force until the end of the republic, was adopted, perhaps on the initiative of the grandees, who hoped to control the elections more closely. It involved six rounds in which the drawing oflots alternated with ballots, until the final election of the forty-one voters who chose the doge. Lorenzo Tiepolo was elected amid popular jubilation. He immediately promised ample freedom to the Scuole di Mestiere, guilds of craftworkers. He introduced monetary measures to favor the less wealthy classes; he accepted a truce with Genoa, which pleased the people. He also tried to placate the great merchants with measures favoring them in navigation. But he was unable to appease them and the tension was continuous until his death in 1275. He was succeeded by two members of the group of the great families, Giacomo Contarini and, on his death, Giovanni Dandolo. When Giovanni died in 1289, the craftworkers demanded the election of Lorenzo Tiepolo's son, named Giacomo after his grandfather the doge. But the opposition party of great families succeeded in having Pietro Gradenigo elected. His was a crucial dogeship in the history of Venice. In 1297, he managed to pass the celebrated law of the serrata or lockout. It established that those who had been members of the Great Council in the last four years would join it by right; others could enter if elected by the Quarantia with at least twelve votes. This mechanism controlled access to the Great Council by excluding the popular party led by the Tiepolo family. Finally, in 1315, it was decided that only those whose father or grandfather had been members could (and should) be admitted. Election was no longer necessary. Membership became birthright, dependent on verification of birth by legitimate marriage. Exceptions were made for much of the fourteenth century, then the rules were tightened. This formed the ruling class that endured until the end of the republic, enlarged after the war of Chioggia, and again in the years of the wars of Crete and the Morea, between 1645 and 1717, when it was decided to accept into the nobility those who paid the substantial sum of roo,ooo ducats. This was made necessary by the needs of the treasury as well as the dwindling number of patricians, due to the natural extinction of ancient families and the numerous losses they suffered in wartime. (It is estimated that about a third of the Great Council fell in battle in those years.) The party that supported Gradenigo still focused on maritime dominance and wanted war with Genoa; but Venice suffered a defeat at Laiazzo and a worse one, in 1298, at Curzola (Korcula).

MAR.I O ZORZ I

THE DOGE OF VENICE

37

VENETIAN PAINTER (ANDREA CELESTI?) Full-Length Portrait of Francesco Morosini ea. 1750 Museo Correr, Venice

An attempt to conquer Ferrara was baffled and incurred papal excommunication. The tensions

produced by the serrata, with the exclusion of many who thought they had a right to take part in government, resulted in a dramatic episode, the rebellion of Baiamonte Tiepolo, the son of Giacomo. Together with Marco Querini, in 1310, he tried in vain to overthrow the aristocratic government by armed revolt. The consequence of this grave event was the creation of the Council of Ten, a powerful police body with broad powers of control over the people, especially the nobility. In the fourteenth century, Venice found itself struggling on two fronts: the Italian mainland and the Mediterranean. In the Veneto, the power of the Della Scala family of Verona had grown and threatened its trade routes. In 1336-1338, they were defeated in war and Venice gained its first mainland possession: Treviso with Mestre. At sea, rivalry with Genoa led to continuous clashes, while the Turkish threat was growing. Among the doges in this century, Andrea Dandolo was outstanding, perhaps the one possessing the highest qualities. He had studied law in Padua (without taking a degree, but patricians rarely bothered to). As a young procurator of St. Mark, for the benefit of all, he had drafted a collection of laws and a brief history of the republic. In it, he stressed the importance of the figure of the doge, the princeps willed by God, and at the same time by the people, in whose interest the ruling class had to work in harmony with the prince. He became doge in 1343, at the age of forty. From an illustrious family, learned and courteous, he had no rivals. He immediately proposed a law in which he applied his ideas. The selection of members of the Senate, previously made by four electors, was the responsibility of the Great Council, an expression of the nobility as a whole, not a part of it. The law was passed, a sign that ideas like his were circulating among a substantial number of patricians. He added a sixth book to Tiepolo's Statutes, brought together the international treaties in two volumes, wrote a new and extensive history of the city, placing the figure of the prince at the center of the narrative, documenting it and dealing with it in depth. In harmony with this vision, he gave impetus to the construction of the magnificent new Doge's Palace, which we still admire. And he prepared for himself a great tomb, in St. Mark's basilica, in keeping with his vision of the centrality of the doge. Unfortunately, fate did not favor him. There were floods, fires, an earthquake, the Black Death of 1348, and in 13.52 war again broke out with Genoa. A defeat in the Bosporus in February 1353 was redeemed by victory at Alghero the following August. To persuade him to end the war with Genoa, Petrarch, the great humanist, poet and scholar, wrote to him on June 5; and the doge, despite the anxiety of those days of war, replied on June 13. Dandolo died on September 7, 1354, sparing him the sorrow of the Venetian defeat at Portolongo on November 4. His successor, Marino Falier, belonged to the powerful group of ancient families and wealthy grandees. He had made a notable political career late in life. He lacked his predecessor's culture

THE DOGE OF VENlCE

39

ANONYMOUS

Doge Vitale Falier at Prayer f or the Recovery of the Body of St. Mark , detail of Oratio and Inventio, second quarter of the 13th century St. Mark's Basilica, south transept, Venice

and breadth of vision and nothing suggested he would attempt a coup to annihilate the nobility. And yet, as is well known, so it was; the conspiracy he organized-badly, it must be saidwas based on the craftworkers, small merchants, and sailors. Perhaps he wished to become absolute ruler, with the support of the classes excluded from aristocratic government. Perhaps, but it seems an inadequate reason, he wished to revenge himself on the nobles for punishing too lightly someone who had insulted him with a celebrated satire posted in the Doge's Palace: "Marin Falier has a beautiful wife. Others enjoy her but he pays her keep." The story ended with Falier being beheaded.

In 1355, peace was made with the Genoese but proved short-lived. In 1356, the king of Hungary, an ally of the lord of Padua and other states, launched attacks in Veneto and Dalmatia. After the very brief dogeship of Giovanni Gradenigo, Giovanni Dolfin was elected with a reputation as a brave soldier, while he was away fighting in Treviso, besieged by the Hungarians. Despite his efforts, Zara (Zadar) in Dalmatia was taken by the Hungarians and the war lost. In 1358, the whole of Dalmatia had to be given up. The new doge, Lorenzo Celsi, elected when he was commander of the Adriatic fleet, had a passion for splendor. A brilliant soldier, he put down a serious revolt in Candia (Crete). His victory was celebrated with a great tournament, at which the king of Cyprus, Pierre I de Lusignan, was a guest of the republic. Petrarch was present, seated on the doge's right hand. Although it had not lost any of its wealth and splendor, the city was seething with discontent. The doge loved to be preceded by the bearer of a scepter, and a member of the Doge's Council broke it, reporting Celsi to the Council of Ten. He died of condonnia or melancholy. It is not known what faults were attributed to him, except this ostentation of authority, but the memory of Marino Falier still stung. The next

doges were Marco Corner and, in 1368, Andrea Contarini. Meanwhile, clashes continued in the Levant between Venetians and Genoese flaring up into open warfare in 1376. This was the start of the dramatic War of Chioggia. The victorious Genoese penetrated as far as the lagoon; then the mobilization of the whole population of the city, the arrival of Carlo Zeno with a fleet from the Levant, the firmness of Doge Andrea Contarini and the skill of Admiral Vettor Pisani reversed the fortunes of war. Surrounded in Chioggia, the Genoese surrendered. Peace was made in 1383. A compromise peace, but by this time Genoa was weary of war and Venice was flourishing. After the terrible war, Venetian society changed. Many families had lost much and there was a broad reversal of fortunes. Thirty families who had contributed to the war, by fighting or providing substantial sums of money, were admitted to the patrician class, the case nuovissime or very new families.

MARINO ZORZI

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41

LAZZARO BASTIAN! Doge Francesco Foscari, ea. 1460 Museo Correr, Venice

Michele Morosini held office briefly, dying after only four months. Antonio Venier was elected in 1382 from one of the case nuove, or new families . This was a change of no small importance. The case vecchie or old families, after dominating the political scene until the eighteenth century, were no longer able to wield power alone.32 The new families had emerged in the councils and secured increasingly important positions. Allied with the nuovissime they would come to dominate the ducal election for the next two centuries, until 1612. More precisely, among the new families there were sixteen, called the ducali, that monopolized the supreme office. Venier was the first in the series. Venier was succeeded by Michele Steno, who had posted the insulting message about Doge Falier, now a sage statesman. Favorable economic circumstances, the death of Gian Galeazzo Visconti, duke of Milan, and the consequent dissolution of his huge state, enabled Steno to effortlessly expand Venetian rule over much of the Veneto, while a difficult war against the da Carrara family led to the acquisition of Padua. Within a short time, the centuries-old Venetian dream had been fulfilled and it had a secure hinterland behind it. Under Steno's successor, Tommaso Mocenigo, Venice conquered Friuli and recovered Dalmatia. In 1423, he was succeeded by Francesco Foscari. He had been made a procurator of St. Mark at only forty and doge at forty-nine. An excellent orator, endowed with a prodigious memory, he headed the party that supported Venice's expansion in Italy. Against him Mocenigo had in vain delivered a famous speech, in which he described Foscari ironically as "our young procurator," accusing him of "uttering lies and also many groundless things, above which he flies higher than falcons ." Mocenigo believed that Venice should stop at the possessions it already had, which were extensive, and "cultivate the sea," leaving the mainland alone. It is needless to describe the celebrated events of Foscari's long reign33: the war with Milan, the conquest of Bergamo and Brescia, the painful fate of his son Giacomo (persecuted out of hatred for his father, some seriously imprudent acts, and a suspicion of murder), and Foscari's forced abdication in 1457 after thirty-four years (the longest reign ever), or his death eight days later. Foscari was the last doge to succeed in imposing his political line, thanks to the strength of his supporters and his youthful energy, despite the continuous pressures, plots, and attacks of enemies and opponents driven by political or personal motives. After him the doges, increasingly laden with honors, splendid in ceremonies, acquired a richly symbolic role, central to the organization of the state, but with limited individual decision-making powers.

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ANONYMOUS

Translation of the Body of St. Mark, ea.

1270

St. Mark's Basilica, portal of Sant' Alipio, Venice

LA DOGARESSA The doge's wife, the dogaressa, appeared in public by his side. In the early centuries, their names are almost all unknown, or the fanciful inventions of chroniclers. As we saw, in the tenth century, Pietro IV Candiano married Waldrada. For the sake of this splendid marriage, he had repudiated his first wife Giovanna, who became an honored nun in San Zaccaria. The wife of Pietro I Orseolo, the saint, after his sudden departure for the monastery of Cuxa, withdrew to the nunnery of San Zaccaria and died there in the odor of holiness. Giovanni, the son of Doge Pietro II Orseolo, whom his father had associated with him on the throne, went twice to Constantinople and married a Greek princess, Maria, the daughter of a sister of Emperor Basil II, who gave Giovanni the title of patrikios. The couple remained in the capital for a long time, honored and laden with gifts. On their return, they were celebrated by all. A child was born to them, called Basil in honor of his illustrious uncle. Unfortunately, the story lacks a happy ending; an epidemic in IOTRIBUNO MENIO (OR MEMMO) 99 1 · A

?

0

991

T

radition has it that Tribuno Menio was a member of the patrician Memmo family. Related to the Candiano family by his marriage to Marina, daughter of Doge Pietro IV, he succeeded the latter's brother Vitale.

His dogeship was a period of internal struggles between the party, led by the

Coloprini family, that favored the German Empire of the West, and the party loyal to the Eastern Roman Empire, headed by the Morosini. Tension peaked when O

O

architecture

the Coloprini murdered Domenico Morosini and sought refuge with the Emperor

ANDREA PALLADIO, 1559

Otto II, offering to make him the overlord of the Venetian duchy, while Stefano

completed in

Coloprini, head of the family, was promised the ducal crown as an imperial vassal.

1610

bust GIULIO MORO, ea.

Meanwhile, in Venice, people looted the fugitives ' homes, and Doge Menio did not 1610

attempt to stop them. Otto II imposed a blockade on all the city's trade, ordered the

arrest of Venetians throughou death in 983 put an end to th family returned to Venice an Stefano's sons. Amid so many misfortu Empire and sent his son Ma succession but failed. In the e (Giovanni Diacono ), the Ven forced the doge and his son t San Zaccaria. It seems more li abdicating, ended his days in Giorgio Maggiore, founded w with the approval of the patri and the people, he had donat Giorgio to Giovanni Morosi Benedictine monastery. Due to numerous fires, a quake in 1223, the Benedictin Giorgio suffered extensive da teenth century, the abbey of S rebuilt to a project by the architect Andrea Palladio. Between 1559 and 1580, when he died, he worked on the refectory, the guest quarters, one of the two cloisters and the church with its forecourt. The construction of the Palladian church, facing St. Mark's basin, was not completed until

1610

with the addition of

the Istrian stone facade, on which the monks placed a memorial to Tribuno Menio. To the right of the porch above a tall plinth, within an architectural aedicula consisting of two semicolurnns and dominated by an architrave and a pediment, is erected the stone tomb chest with the celebratory inscription. A classical-style sarcophagus rests on it, supporting the bust depicting the doge, carved by the sculptor Giulio Moro. The epigraph on the stone coffin composed by the writer Giacomo Cavaccio pays tribute to the doge's generosity to the Benedictine order.

TRlBUNO MEN!O (OR MEMMO)

65

CHURCH OF SAN NICOLO DEL LIDO

CONTARINI 1071 · A

?

0

1071

T

he ancient Contarini family gave Venice eight doges, although they belonged to different branches of the family tree. Domenico was the first of them to be elected to the highest office of state, and held it for twenty-seven years.

The titles of patrician, arch-hypatos and magister, conferred on him by

Constantinople, suggest close ties with the Eastern Empire. He also managed to overcome the initial hostility of the Holy Roman Emperor Henry III and secured the renewal of some ancient privileges granted to the Venetians. Following centuries of diplomatic disputes, he had to defend the patriarch of Grado from attacks by the patriarch of Aquileia, Wolfgang von Treffen, known as Poppone.

In 579, Patriarch Elia of Aquileia had moved to Grado during the Lombard invasions, entering the duchy of Venice under Byzantine rule. He was able to maintain his primacy in the duchy and in !stria, but he lost his authority on the mainland. In 607, the Lombards created a new patriarchate of Aquileia in the ancient episcopal see, with the habitual residence of the prelate at Cividale. The two patriarchates contended for the title, its powers, and possessions, one being supported by the Germanic emperors and the other by Venice and Byzantium.

In 1024, Poppone decided to act with the support of the emperor. He invaded and devastated Grado, asking the pope to declare that he had jurisdiction over it, but the pope refused to commit himself and Poppone withdrew. In 1044, he repeated the attempt, occupying Grado and destroying it again, with the consent of Emperor Henry III, but this time Domenico I Contarini obtained from the pope the solemn and final confirmation of the rights of the patriarchate of Grado. In 1053, the patriarch of Aquileia, Domenico Marango, obtained from Pope Leo IX a ruling in which Grado was declared "a new Aquileia" ("Nova Aquileia, totius Venetiae et Histriae ea put et metropolis") with supremacy over Venice and Istria, and jurisdiction also over its territories, but this ruling never became effective. Beginning in 1063, Contarini promoted the rebuilding of the masonry work of Il

66

sculpture

St. Mark's basilica in the form that we can still admire today, leaving his successors

SCULPTOR UNKNOWN, ea. 1640

to complete its decorations.

;.

,,... . . ~- . _·.v

,. ~/

.,

~

. · -.,.~'JI

With the patriarch of Grado and the bishop of Olivolo ( now San Pietro di Castello) in Venice, he founded the church and monastery of San Nicolo de! Lido and bestowed it on the Benedictine monks. He was buried in

1071

in the

church of San Nicolo del Lido, according to his will, because the rebuilding of St. Mark's basilica, which he had promoted, was not yet complete. In 1580, Francesco Sansovino, in his famous guide venetia, citta nobilissima et singolare confirms the existence in the sacristy of the Doge Domenico I's funerary monument, a tomb decorated with polychrome marble such as porphyry and serpentine. Between 1626 and

1629, the church was rebuilt, and the ancient marble sarcophagus was destroyed.

In 1640, the Benedictines dedicated a new monument to him, sculpted in Istrian stone, which they placed on the facade, left unfinished, over the portal. Above the architrave, on a tall rectangular stone plinth which probably bore the epitaph, rests a classical sarcophagus that supports the bust of Doge Domenico I Contarini.

DOMENICO l CONTARlN l

ST. MARK'S BASILICA

1084> VITALE 1096. FALi ER A

?

n

DECEMBER 1096

I

n 1081, Falier's predecessor Domenico Selvo had supported Byzantine Emperor Alexius Comnenus in the war against the Normans, who were attempting to capture Durazzo (Durres) in Albania before attacking Constantinople itself. At

first, Selvo was remarkably successful, leading the emperor to grant substantial tax exemptions to Venetian merchants, but in 1084 he suffered a serious defeat, followed by a revolt among his troops. Vitale Falier then defeated the Normans at Butrint in 1085. His dogeship is remembered for the transfer of the relics of Mark the Evangelist to the crypt of St. Mark's basilica. Traditional legends recount that the body of St. Mark had been lost ever since the time of Pietro IV Candiano, but it was miraculously rediscovered when part of the church's structure collapsed. Dating from the thirteenth century, ancient mosaics can still be seen on the wall of the south transept of the basilica with images of the reappearance of the mortal remains and celebrations for their recovery. Doge Vitale Falier's funerary monument was erected in the narthex of St.

Mark's basilica, in the niche to the right as one enters from the main portal. In the niche to the left is the one dedicated to Felicia, the wife of Doge Vitale I Michie! ( 1096-1102 ). Tradition has it that Doge Michie! is also buried in this niche, leading to the two memorials being described as belonging to the basilica's founders. So here we have two important funerary monuments from the early twelfth century. The monument to Vitale Falier, in Venetian-Byzantine style, resembles a barco, a choir loft, or gallery, probably built on the model of a Byzantine iconostasis (the screen dividing the altar from the congregation), as if to stress the sacredness of the deceased. The monument is articulated by four pillars and divided into two orders.

In the lower central section, there is a plaque with an epitaph partly corroded by the salt aiF, while at the sides are two slabs carved with geometric motifs. The upper part is decorated with three slabs of Proconnesian marble finely worked in a perfoJ:l

sculpture

rated pattern. The vault of the apse, decorated with gilded mosaic tiles, originally

SCULPTOR UNKNOWN, early 12th century

contained a prayer addressed by the doge to Jesus Christ.

BASILICA OF SAN GIORGIO MAGGIORE

DOMENICO MICHIEL 1118 > 1130 •

T

he epitaph on the doge's tomb briefly describes the feats he performed in

A

his career: "The terror of the Greeks, the praise of Venice, the heroic con-

0

n30

J:l

architecture

queror of Tyre, who brought ruin to Syria and weeping to Hungary."

In II23, he traveled to the Holy Land, summoned by Baldwin II, who was

struggling against the Saracens. He left the government of Venice to his son Leachirn and a second person likewise named Domenico Michiel, despite the rules forbidding nepotism. First, he clashed with an Egyptian fleet at the port of Ascalon. Then, together with the troops of William of Bures, he captured Tyre after a siege lasting five months. The disks on the Michie! famil y coat of arms evoke the anecdote that his faithful troops agreed to be paid in leather coins, which he pledged to convert to money when they returned to Venice. He then had to deal with the problem of relations with Byzantine Emperor John II Comnenus, who had revoked the tax concessions granted to the Venetians

BALDASSARE LONGHENA (attr.), 1635 J:l

bust

BATTISTA PAGLIARI, 1635

g to achieve the desired lundered Rhodes, Chios, ethoni, and Kefalonia, so that he restored the priviup the Adriatic, where he d by Stephen II of Hungary, so many military successes, w to the monastery of San e ended his days soon after, eh in a monument decobrating his diplomatic and tated by his wife Victa, ction of the church by ument was demolished and m throwing out the doge's e precious polychrome attista, heir to the illustrious d the monks and in 1635, e Senate of the Serenissima of a new commemorative memorial, ordering the monks to erect it within six months. The monument, a project attributed to Baldassare Longhena, is set in the vestibule leading to the chancel of the basilica behind the main altar. The structure is reminiscent of the monument to Almerico d'Este in the basilica of the Frari and the tomb of Orazio Farnese in the church known as I Gesuiti. Above a base fronted by a stone bench rise two columns of black and white marble with composite capitals. On the base rests the sarcophagus with the black marble plaque bearing the inscription, albeit in reduced form, that had been placed on the earlier monument. In the center, above the classic marble tomb chest, appears the bust of the doge by the sculptor Battista Pagliari. Two reliefs in Carrara marble, depicting trophies of arms, are placed at the sides of the columns between pilasters.

74

III8 > II30

BASILICA OF SAN GIORGIO MAGGIORE

Z

iani had accumulated great wealth as a merchant in Constantinople and Acre. He was so wealthy, in fact, that to evoke the idea of great riches the Venetians used to say "l'haver de ea' Ziani" (the wealth of the Ziani family). He was

the first doge to distribute money to the people on his election. Some believe that

A

ea. II02

this was partly to appease anger at the introduction of a new electoral system, which established a committee of eleven members instead of an assembly of all the people. During his reign, Venice hosted the negotiations that put an end to the long struggle between Pope Alexander III, Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, and the Italian free

n

O

architecture

cities. This mediation brought the Venetians advantages and protection throughout

ANDREA PALLADIO, 1559

the empire. In recognition of the supremacy acquired in the Adriatic, the city also

completed in 16ro

instituted the festival of the Marriage of Venice to the Sea, which provided an oppor-

bust

tunity for pilgrims to receive indulgences.

GIULIO MORO, ea. 16ro

In the years of his dogeship, the city's urban fabric was reorganized, in partic-

ular the area around St. Mark's Square. Houses were built for the procurators of St. Mark, the church of San Geminiano was demolished and rebuilt, and two columns were erected on the seafront. The doge abdicated in II78 to retire to the church of San Giorgio Maggiore and died soon after, leaving some of his possessions to the monks. The vicissitudes of the monument to Doge Sebastiano Ziani are very similar to those of the tomb of Domenico Michie! [see pp. 73-75). The ancient marble sarcophagus was described by Francesco Sansovino and, according to sources, had a plaque with an inscription celebrating the doge's glorious deeds and virtues. During the construction of the Palladian church, the sarcophagus, of which no trace remains, was opened and the remains of the doge and probably his two sons, Giacomo Count of Ragusa and Pietro, who was doge from 1205 to 1229, were found. In 16ro, the monks decided to erect a new monument to Sebastiano Ziani, placing it to the left of the facade in Istrian stone, mirroring the memorial to Tribuno Menio. The two monuments are identical, placed at the sides of the porch above a high plinth, within architectural aediculae consisting of two semicolumns dominated by an architrave and a pediment. Between the columns lies the tomb chest with the celebratory inscription, on which rests the classical sarcophagus that supports a bust of the doge.

HAG IA SOPHIA ISTANBUL

1192 >

ENRICO 1205. DANDO LO E

nrico Dandolo was one of the forty members of the conclave that elected the

Doge Orio Mastropiero in 1178, after the renewal of the electoral system. He was elected himself many years later, aged eighty-five, and when he was

already partly blind, although according to the chronicles, still endowed with great physical strength. On this occasion he signed the ducal oath of office ( not the first

A

ea. 1107

but the earliest one to survive). It contains seventeen sets of rules binding him to

0

CONSTANTINOPLE, MAY

Jl

plaque

1205

observe certain obligations to the Great and Lesser Councils. He was the doge of the Fourth Crusade. The leaders of the Latin powers, having assembled in Venice, agreed to employ the Venetian fleet in exchange for adequate payment. Since the Crusaders were unable to comply with the terms of the agreement, and not even able to reimburse the expenses incurred by the city, they agreed to help Venice regain Zara (Zadar) in Dalmatia, which had rebelled. From there they should have sailed for Egypt, which threatened the Holy Land. Instead, they decided to accept the request for help by Alexios Angelos, son of the ousted Byzantine Emperor Isaac. They sailed to Constantinople, drove out the usurper, and reinstalled Isaac and his son on the throne. But Alexios was unwilling or unable to make the promised payments. Unpopular with the Byzantines, he was killed, his father died, and his successor attacked the Crusaders, trapped outside the walls of Constantinople. They had no choice but to fight. The city was conquered and with it the Byzantine empire. The division of the territories brought Venice supremacy over a considerable part of the empire and very rich booty in relics and treasure, including the four famous gilt-bronze horses from the Hippodrome, which were placed on the facade of St. Mark's. The doge, now over ninety years old, died in Constantinople and was buried in the church ofHagia Sophia. There is an extensive literature with various legends about the vicissitudes of the tomb of Doge Dandolo. It seems to have been a marble sarcophagus decorated with reliefs depicting the lion of St. Mark and the ducal corno. Today, in the central part of the matroneum ofHagia Sophia there is a simple slab of marble framed in a rectangle bearing the inscription "Henricus Dandolo." Most likely this inscription with lettering in medieval style was the work of the architect Gaspare Fossati, who restored the complex ofHagia Sofia between 1847 and 1849.

GASPARE FOSSATI(?), 1847-1849

79

BASILICA OF SANTI GIOVANNI E PAOLO

1229 >

GIACOMO (JACOPO) TIEPOLO 1249. A 0

JULY 19, 1249

G

iacomo and Lorenzo Tiepolo, father and son, share a sarcophagus to the left of the portal on the unfinished facade of the basilica of Santi Giovanni e Paolo.

Giacomo's election contained an element ofluck, as the conclave, unable to

decide between him and Marino Dandolo, drew his name by lot. He had a troubled relationship with Emperor Frederick II, who was his guest in Venice in 1230. With "great wonder and rare perception he admired the faith and union that were seen throughout the city from the greatest to the least." But later, the doge, worried about the conquests of the imperial vicar Ezzelino da Romano, turned against the emperor and waged war on the pro-imperial cities in an alliance with the Lombard League. Doge Tiepolo also consolidated Venetian rule over Candia (Crete), burned the fleet of Ancona, repressed revolts in Pola (Pula) and Zara (Zadar) stirred up by the king of Hungary, and besieged Ferrara, forcing it to surrender. His dogeship is also remembered for the institution of the Consiglio dei Pregadi (or Senate), a council of correctors of the ducal oath, the compilation of the Statutes and the Capitulare navium, a code of maritime law. In 1234, he donated an extensive tract ofland to the Dominicans to build the basilica of Santi Giovanni e Paolo. In 1249, he abdicated, and withdrew to his house in Sant' Agostino. His son Lorenzo received the news of his election while he was in Veglia (Krk) in Dalmatia, which he ruled as count in place of the temporarily ousted Frangipane family. Commanding the Venetian fleet, he defeated the Genoese off Acre in the Holy Land, forcing the surrender of their forces that were holding out in the city. He was much loved in life and mourned in death, as the chronicler Martino da Canal recalls: "You could have heard great weeping and [... J men great and small and women and maidens and humble people mourning." O

80

sculpture

The marble sarcophagus of the Tiepolos, father and son, is a work from the early

SCULPTORS UNKNOWN

Christian period, probably from Ravenna. It was extensively resculpted for reuse

Early Christian sarcophagus from Ravenna (?)

as a funerary monument. The front of the sepulchre is divided into three parts: in

Resculpted in the 13th century

the center, a carved epigraph, according to most scholars dating from the fifteenth

BASILICA OF SANTI GIOVANNI E PAOLO

1268> LORENZO 1275· TIE POLO century, celebrates the heroic feats of the two doges, and at the sides are depicted two angels bearing incense, carelessly carved and probably reworked. On the base of the sarcophagus the dates, albeit incorrect, and the names of the two doges are carved in

A

Gothic lettering. The lid might also have been a piece of reused marble. It is divided

0

into five panels with Christian symbols. On the acroteria at either end are carved Phrygian caps, as in the Tiepolo family coat of arms, with the ducal corno above them.

AUGUST 16, 1275

ST. MARK'S BASILICA

1249> MARINO · 1253.

MOROSINI

H

e was the first doge to be elected by a college of forty-one members, an odd number being chosen to avoid an electoral deadlock, and in fact he was elevated to the ducal throne with only twenty-one votes.

A

n81

The diplomatic skill he displayed in his embassies to Gregory IX and the

0

JANUARY

O

sculpture

l,

1253

Council of Lyons ( 1245) probably earned him the election. Unlike his predecessor, Giacomo Tiepolo, he ensured a period of peace and prosperity in Venice, placing commerce before warfare. He signed treaties with Ragusa (Dubrovnik), Genoa, Tunis, Zara (Zadar), and refused to join the crusade promoted by Louis IX in Egypt, preferring to preserve the mercantile agreements in force with the sultan. During the years of his government, as can be seen on the scroll in his portrait in the Sala de! Maggior Consiglio, the primicerio, the canon regent of St. Mark's basilica, received the titles of a bishop. In internal politics, a sort of nocturnal police force called the Signori di Notte was instituted, as well as magistrates with the task of suppressing heresy. Doge Marino Morosini's funerary monument, set in the first apse of the north wing of the narthex of St. Mark's , was the first monumental tomb to be erected in the church. The semicircular apse serves as a frame for the sepulchre. It was presumably placed here shortly after Morosini's death in 1253 and may have encouraged a resumption of work on the mosaics, after being abandoned for about twenty years. The tomb is made of refined marble slabs, part of the plunder brought from Greece and the Levant, which had previously been used between the fourth and seventh centuries. A work of great historical and artistic importance, it rests on two blocks oflstrian stone. The back consists of a single slab oflstrian stone; the front and sides are decorated with reliefs in marble and with elements in Istrian stone and Verona stone. Within a frame of finely worked plant motifs are carved two registers, divided by a listel on which is engraved the doge's epitaph. The upper register represents Jesus Christ, recognizable by his halo, with the apostles, while in the lower one, six figures appear in the act of praying, including the Virgin Mary below the figure of Christ.

SCULPTOR UNKNOWN, rnid-13th century

BASILICA OF SANTI GIOVANNI E PAOLO

I (RANIERI ZENO)

I

rnmediately after being elected, the doge was involved in the crusade organized

A

by Pope Alexander IV against the brothers Ezzelino and Alberico da Romano,

0

JULY 7, 1268

Il

sculpture

who had occupied the March of Treviso as part of the wider conflict between

Ghibellines and Guelphs. He also had to deal with the war with Genoa, which

broke out over possession of the monastery of St. Sabas in Acre, but its underlying motive was control of trade with the Levant. There followed a series of clashes between Venice and Genoa, the latter allied with Michael II Palaiologos, who put an end to the Latin Empire of the East. Venice and Genoa signed a five-year truce and then a peace treaty. The articles secured commercial privileges for both parties and left Venice with Candia (Crete), the Morea (Peloponnese), and the Greek archipelago. Doge Renier Zen died in 1268 and was buried according to his will in the basilica of Santi Giovanni e Paolo, having provided detailed instructions for the construction of his own funerary monument, work upon which began while he was still alive. In addition to his will, there is a very full record of the payments made for the

work, which took the form of a sarcophagus resting against the wall, suspended above the floor by two large carved corbels and surmounted by a structure similar to a ciborium resting on four columns. The completed monument was guarded by an iron and wooden enclosure. The wall above the sarcophagus was painted, as was the vault, which depicts Christ on a gilded cross set on a ground of lapis lazuli. All that remains of this complex monument is the front of the Proconnesian marble tomb chest depicting Christ enthroned supported by two angels. The imagery incorporates elements of the early Christian and Byzantine traditions. Recent restoration has brought to light some traces of gilding on the front of the sarcophagus and pillars, cornices and corbels in Istrian stone. Together with the Zen coat of arms above the monument, they proba-

SCULPTOR UNKNOWN, ea. 1268

bly date from the early sixteenth century.

with r6th-century additions

85

BASILICA OF SANTI GIOVANNI E PAOLO

GIOVANNI 1280 > DANDO LO 1298 · A 0

NOVEMBER 2, 1289

I

n an effort to contain the rebels in Istria, Giovanni Dandolo received the ducal como on March 25, 1280. The initial rift turned to open warfare, partly fomented by the patriarch of Aquileia. A fragile peace was made only in 1285,

but this again left some issues unsettled. The upshot was further extensive clashes

in Friuli, with the complicity of the Count of Gorizia, and in Trieste. The question would be resolved only with the peace of r 304 during the reign of his successor. On the military level, the doge negotiated an end to the conflict with Ancona. He was a prime mover of the refusal, leading to excommunication, to join the crusade organized by Pope Martin rv; whose true intention was to reconquer Sicily, a fiefdom of the Church and of little interest to Venice. The years of his government are also remembered for a violent earthquake and a great flood that damaged the city. In domestic politics, the most famous of Venetian coins, the gold ducat, later renamed the zecchino (sequin) was first coined by the state mint. The original funerary monument to Doge Giovanni Dandolo-described by Francesco Sanso vino in r 580--was placed in the first cloister, demolished during the period of French rule, of the basilica of Santi Giovanni e Paolo. The porphyry sarcophagus was surmounted by an arch and placed on the wall near the door, now walled up, between the cloister and the church. This space is now occupied, toward the left aisle, by the effigy of Michele Steno, doge from 1400 to r4r3, moved here from the church of Santa Marina. Porphyry sarcophagi were reserved for Byzantine emperors, as also shown by the tomb of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II of Swabia preserved in Palermo. The doges, by using this noble marble for their burials, aspired to display a power equal to that of the emperors. Today, all that remains is the plaque with the inscription, probably placed ll

86

plaque

under the urn. In the nineteenth century, it was moved inside the basilica to protect

late 13th century

it and set under the equestrian monument to General Pompeo Giustiniani.

/

BASILICA OF SANTI GIOVANNI E PAOLO

F

ollowing the death of Doge Pietro Gradenigo, who had masterminded the ser-

rata of the Great Council and defeated the rebel Baiamonte Tiepolo, Stefano

Giustinian was elected but decided to become a Benedictine monk. The

electors were then unable to choose a candidate, but seeing through the windows

A

ea. 1231

0

JULY 3, 1312

l::t

plaque

of the Doge's Palace the elderly Marino Zorzi distributing alms to the poor, they immediately chose him. It seems that since this led to the custom of boarding up the windows during elections. Perhaps the voters hoped that his pious and charitable character would facilitate negotiations with the pope and resolve the issue of Ferrara. In 1308, two members of the House of Este had fallen out with each other. One had recognized the overlordship of the pope, the other that of Venice. The republic had occupied Ferrara, but Pope Clement V claimed it. Venice refused to return it and the pope excommunicated the city. In 1309, he went so far as to proclaim a crusade against the republic, which suffered a serious defeat. Marino was unable to make any progress and also had to face a new revolt in Zara (Zadar). His reputation as a saint led him to conceal his place of burial to prevent, as Andrea da Mosto wrote, "the people from trying to dig him up to shred his clothes and divide up his body as relics. " In his will, Doge Marino Zorzi asked to be buried with his wife in the left aisle of the basilica of Santi Giovanni e Paolo, but his precise place of burial is unknown. The monument must have been painted, because in 1322, ten years after the doge's death, it was decorated by one Guglielmo Zaparino. Following the reconstruction of the church in the early fifteenth century, the tomb was completely destroyed and the doge's remains moved to the church's cloister, subsequently demolished. This gave rise to a tradition that the cloister, as tentatively suggested by the sources, was the place chosen for his burial, reflecting his piety. In 1763, at the request of the friars, a commemorative plaque bearing an inscription and the Zorzi coat of arms was carved and placed in the left aisle of the church near the monument to Doge Nicolo Marcello.

1763

ST. MARK'S BASILICA

A

1245

0

DECEMBER 31, 1328

I

n 1296, Giovanni Soranzo was the captain of twenty-five galleys in the war against the Genoese. He took Kaffa in Crimea and defended it against the Tartars. He also fought in the Ferrara wars, where he was appointed podesta

(chief magistrate). He persuaded the pope to revoke the excommunication of Venice

over the question of Ferrara and quelled a rebellion in Zara (Zadar), leading other Dalmatian cities to submit spontaneously. The chronicles mention the unique gift of a pair of lions, symbols of St. Mark, received from the king of Sicily, Frederick of Aragon, in 1316, though the oath of office prohibited the doge and his family from receiving gifts. In 1321, Soranzo welcomed Dante Alighieri as a guest. He was visiting Venice as the representative of Guido Novello da Polenta, the lord of Ravenna. Soranzo's family life was overshadowed by the sentence inflicted on his daughter Soranza, the wife of the conspirator Nicolo Querini. She suffered life imprisonment in a small house near the monastery of Santa Maria delle Vergini. According to the Council of Ten, she was guilty of returning to the city without permission. Her imprisonment ceased on her husband's death. The funerary monument to Doge Giovanni Soranzo was the first to be erected in the baptistery of St. Mark's. It is on the left as you enter from the Zen chapel. The sarcophagus, supported by corbels and positioned at eye level, is decorated on the front with two large slabs of green Cipollino marble, reflecting the Venetians' love of reusing ancient polychrome marble as symbols of wealth and power. Between the two veined slabs appears a carving in high relief of St. John the Baptist, the doge's patron saint, holding a medallion with the sacrificial lamb. At the sides are carved two bishop saints wearing miters and holding croziers and books. The cornice of the lid of the sarcophagus is finely decorated with foliage. On the wall lined with slabs of Cipollino marble is a relief with the Soranzo family coat of arms bearing traces of blue and gold pigment, supported by two shields and framed by a band of verde antico marble surmounting the tomb. This is the first example of a doge's

II

sculpture

tomb bearing the family's arms. The corbels and the large slab oflstrian stone that

SCULPTOR UNKNOWN, 14th century

supports the sarcophagus are recent.

BASILICA OF SANTA MARIA GLORIOSA DEI FRARI

)

F

DANDO LO 1339·

A

ea. 1258

0

OCTOBER 31 , 1339

D

andolo had been an ambassador to the pope, when the papacy was in Avignon. To win absolution from excommunication (inflicted on the Venetians in the dispute over Ferrara), he is said to have thrown himself

at the pontiff's feet with a chain around his neck, declaring that he would rise only

when he was heard. According to one tradition, this gesture led to him being given the nickname cane ("dog"), though some sources say it had already been applied to his father. It was used to distinguish the branch of the Dandolo family to which Francesco belonged, but similar nicknames were frequent in Venice. O

O

sculpture

Together with Florence, Perugia, Siena, and Bologna, he opposed the expan-

SCULPTOR UNKNOWN, mid-14th century

sionist aims of Mastino II, lord of Verona, who had succeeded his father Cangrande

painting

della Scala and was threatening Venice's commercial interests. The fortunes of war

PAOLO VENEZIANO, ea. 1339

turned against Mastino, as Venice extended its alliances first to the lords of Milan, Ferrara and Mantua, then to Charles of Bohemia and John of Carinthia. In 1339, peace was signed and the treaty gave Venice the March of Treviso, the first step of its expansion into its Italian hinterland. Francesco Dandolo left precise instructions for his burial and, having been one of the benefactors of the basilica of the Frari when it was being built, he chose to place his tomb in the Chapter House of the Franciscan convent. The monument consists of a stone sarcophagus supported by corbels, a lunette containing a beautiful panel painting by Paolo Veneziano, and a pointed arch supported by two imposing corbels decorated with motifs depicting lush leafage and prominently featuring the arms of the Dandolo family.

92

93

94

1 32 9

) 1 339

FRANCESCO DANDOLO

95

ST. MARK'S BASILICA

GRAD ENI GO 1342• B artolomeo Gradenigo competed in the election for the ducal throne with

Andrea Dandolo and Marino Falier, his successor. He was also related to

Dandolo, whose elder sister was his third wife. The doge, together with

A

1263

0

DECEMBER 28, 1342

his six sons, all of chem by his first marriage, was very active in trade, prompting

the correctors of his oath of office to impose greater restrictions on his pursuit of personal interests. In the years of his dogeship, Venice had to cope with two natural disasters: a

terrible storm on February 15, 1340, and flooding due to exceptionally high tides on March 8, 1342. They left a deep impression on contemporaries, being interpreted as divine warnings against the corruption of the times. The flood gave rise to the legend that a fisherman brought the doge a ring that he had received from St. Nicholas, St. Mark, and St. George, who had interceded to save the city from the storm unleashed by a boatload of demons. The funerary monument of Doge Bartolomeo Gradenigo, placed in the first apse in the left arm of the narthex of St. Mark's basilica was the focal point of the celebrated processions chat set out from St. Mark's basin, crossed the Piazzetta and entered the church through the Porta da Mar, later walled up when the altar of the Zen chapel was installed in 1512. The Istrian stone sarcophagus, set level with the cornices of the vaults of the niches lining the apse, bears decoration similar to that of the monument to Doge Giovanni Soranzo. Its sculptural images marked an innovation in monuments of the doges. In the central relief, the doge is depicted directly on the sarcophagus. He is kneeling to be presented to the Virgin enthroned with the Christ Child by St. Bartholomew, his patron saint, and by St. Mark as patron saint of Venice, depicted holding his Gospel. At the extremities are sculpted the Archangel Gabriel and the Virgin Annunciate. The imagery of this scene appears for the first time in Venice on this very sarcophagus. Below, there is the commemorative inscription carved in high relief in Istrian stone and surrounded by slabs of verde IJ

sculpture ANDRIOLO DE SANTI (attr.) mid-14th century

antico marble, probably reused.

The monument is attributed to the workshop of Andriolo de Santi, who worked in the Veneto for important clients. This complex marked his arrival in the city.

97

ST. MARK'S BASILICA

,,

DANDO LO 1354· A

APRIL 30, 1306

0

SEPTEMBER 7, 1354

A

ndrea Dandolo was one of the most eminent figures of his time with close ties to contemporary men of letters, including Petrarch. Highly cultured, he had a legal education and attended the University of Padua, although

he seems not to have taken a degree. He cultivated literature and history and was the author of two chronicles: the Chronica brevis, composed while he was a procurator, and the Chronica per extensum descripta, written during his dogeship with the help of the chancellery. It is an impressive work, the result of careful research, based on

II

sculpture

first-hand documents, constituting a primary source for the period preceding its

WORKSHOP OF ANDRIOLO DE SANTI

compilation. Naturally, he invariably sought to present Venice in a good light and

second half of the 14th century

stressed the importance of the office of doge. Nicknamed cortesin/contesin for his elegant and refined manners, he made a rapid and brilliant political career, becoming a procurator of St. Mark in 1331, and being elected to the highest office of the state at thirty-seven, in part due to the influence of his family.

In the years of his dogeship, Venice took part in the crusade against the Turks in 1343, put down a further revolt-the seventh-by Zara (Zadar), despite attempts to retake it by Louis the Great, king of Hungary, and was ravaged by the Black Death, which decimated the population within six months. Venice's enmity with Genoa flared up again in those years. Genoa won victories in Greece and the Adriatic, despite Petrarch's vain attempts to prevent the clash by urging the rival powers "to lay down their uncivilized weapons, unite their souls and flags, and exchange the kiss of peace." The doge had expressed the desire to be buried in the left transept of St. Mark's, but this was refused

/

99

by the Signory and the procurators of St. Mark, who decided to erect the funeral monument on the righthand wall of the baptistery, on an axis with the door leading from the nave to the baptismal font. The monument, while adopting the traditional model of the doge's sarcophagus, is notable for some important innovations, such as the three deep, semicircular niches with shell vaults sculpted on the front. The ones at the ends contain the figures sculpted in high relief of the Virgin Annunciate and the Archangel Gabriel enclosed by small spiral columns, while the one in the middle represents the Virgin crowned and enthroned with the Christ Child. The two panels at the sides of the central niche depict, at left, the martyrdom of St. John the Evangelist and, at right, that of St. Andrew, the doge's patron saint. Above the frieze richly carved with foliage appears the gisant, the effigy of the doge recumbent in his robes of office. His features are depicted with a serene expression and he rests on a cushion richly decorated with studs in the shape of flowers. At the sides, two angels draw the curtains of the marble canopy above the doge and spread incense. The whole monument had polychrome coloring, and some gilded stars can still be made out on the blue ground painted on the underside of the canopy. The inscription is carved on a slab of marble placed on the wall beneath the sarcophagus . The monument is considered a masterpiece from the workshop of the sculptor Andriolo de Santi.

MOREA DANDOLO

IOI

BASILICA OF SANTI GIOVANNI E PAOLO

GIOVANNI

A

ea. 1303

0

JULY 12, 1361

• ll

sculpture ANDREA DA SAN FELICE, 1360-1362

ll

G

iovanni Dolfin received the news of his election as doge when he was in Treviso besieged by the Hungarians. He opened a gap in the enemy ranks by brandishing the banner of St. Mark unfurled, accompanied by a hun-

dred knights and 200 foot soldiers. In Treviso, he had lost the use of one eye due to

illness, and he was in the habit of covering it with a silk patch. Though esteemed for his military and diplomatic skills, he was unable to resist

painting

the alliance led by the powerful king of Hungary, Louis the Great, with the duke

GUARIENTO DI ARPO, ea. 1363

of Austria, the patriarch of Aquileia and the Lord of Padua, Francesco da Carrara. They compelled him to sign the treaty ofZara (Zadar), which lost Venice the whole ofDalmatia. This forced the doge to renounce the title of duke of Dalmatia and Croatia, but Venice retained Treviso. The republic never forgave its betrayal by the ambitious Francesco da Carrara, who had come to power with Venetian support, and it put every obstacle in the way of his expansionist aims. The funerals of the doges had previously been conducted without official formalities, but Dolfin's was ordered for the first time by a sumptuous celebratory protocol, making it a complex ceremonial act. His funerary monument was erected in keeping with his will in the basilica of Santi Giovanni e Paolo, being placed on the wall to the left of the high altar. This was the first case of a doge being buried in the principal chapel of a church. Instead of the stone arcosolium ( or arched recess) above the sarcophagus, as in the tomb of Francesco Dandolo in the Frari [see

pp. 92-95], Dolfin's sarcophagus was surrounded by a fresco painted by Guariento di Arpo. A painted architectural frieze above the sepulchre depicted the Virgin enthroned with the doge and the dogaressa presented by their patron saints. At the sides, framed within cornice moldings, were painted four virtues, two of which are still visible to the right of the Vendramin monument [see pp. 178-193]. In

1815, the sarcophagus in Carrara marble was removed from its original place to make way for the installation of the monument to Doge Andrea Vendramin, moved here from the church of the Servi, which was partly demolished in those years. Dolfin's sarcophagus, placed on the left wall of the Cavalli chapel, repeats the compositional scheme used for the front of Andrea Dandolo's sarcophagus [see pp. 98-rn1 ]. In the two side aediculae appear, on the left, the Virgin Annunciate and, on the right, the Archangel Gabriel, while at the center is carved Christ enthroned in high relief between two angels, which draw aside the curtains of the canopy. At the foot of the throne, depicted in very small proportions, appear the worshipping figures of the doge and Dogaressa Caterina Giustinian. The two panels, also carved in high relief, represent the Adoration of the Magi and the Dormition of the Virgin. The frieze on the lid of the sarcophagus is finely carved. The sarcophagus is supported by two corbels decorated with lush leafage gilded, while, on the front appear the Dolfin family emblems of three dolphins gilded on a blue ground. The Dolfin coat of arms appears again on the tombstone of red Verona marble, which is still in its original position, partly covered by the steps of the Vendramin monument.

rn3

BASILICA OF SANTI GIOVANNI E PAOLO

MARCO 65 > CORNER 1368·

A

ea. 1286

0

JANUARY 13, 1368

M

arco Corner ( or Cornaro) held important military and diplomatic posts. He was one of the four commissaries of the navy appointed to support the captain general Nicolo Pisani in the war between Venice

and Genoa. He was also several times ambassador to the Holy Roman Emperor

Charles IV and the King of Hungary Louis of Anjou. He was in Venice at the time of Marin Falier's conspiracy and the nobles gathered at his house to organize its repression. He was made deputy doge in the days following the execution ofFalier until the appointment of his successor. He then returned to his work as a diplomat, going to Charles IV after the end of the war with Hungary to ensure recognition of Venice's possession of Treviso. On his return journey, in January 1360, he and a colleague were imprisoned in Austria by a local potentate, Barbaro Regolo di Sench, to avenge himself on the Venetians for destroying his castle during the Hungarian war. Protests to the duke of Austria took effect only in September 1361, when Corner was able to return to Venice, accompanied by the duke himself. Soon after this, he was sent as ambassador to the pope in Avignon. His election as doge in 1365 was far from predictable. Held against him were his advanced age, the non-noble origin of his wife, and his friendship with foreign princes. Since he was one of the forty-one voters, he defended himself and presented his candidature with conviction. His brief dogeship was a period of commerce and peace, the only exception being a new revolt in Crete. He also began work on the Gothic facade of the Doge's Palace facing the sea and had the chamber of the Great Council decorated. Doge Marco Corner's funerary monument stands in the principal chapel of the basilica of Santi Giovanni e Paolo to the left of the altar. In 1815, the monuIl

sculpture

ment was moved slightly from its original position to make way for the imposing

NINO PISANO and WORKSHOP

Vendramin memorial.

VENETIAN ARTISTS ea. 1368

106

His tomb marked an important innovation in the composition of Venetian funerary monuments. The lower part consists of the sepulchre in Istrian stone

supportep by two rich corbels with lion's heads surmounted by the Corner coats of arms carved and divided into gold and blue fields. The sarcophagus does not repeat the figurative motifs used in previous monuments, but the front is decorated with a frieze of leaves and squ.;u-e panels with gilded flowers , over which falls a cloth painted in imitation of precious fourteenth-century fabrics. The doge is depicted lying on a tilted plane to be admired from below and is depicted for the first time with a sword. The use of Istrian stone for the lower part of the monument and the polychrome architecture, housing the sculptures in the upper part set within five niches, reflects the work of Venetian craftsmen. The Carrara marble statues were sculpted by Nino Pisano and his workshop in Pisa by 1368, the year of the death of both the sculptor and the doge, and later sent to Venice. The commission given to the Tuscan sculptor was probably connected with work done a few years earlier, when Giovanni Pisano sent some sculptures to Padua for the Scrovegni chapel. This belonged to the family of the doge's first wife Giovanna Scrovegni, the daughter of Enrico, who commissioned the famous chapel frescoed by Giotto in Padua. The statues of the Virgin and Child, signed by the sculptor on the base, are accompanied by St. Peter, St. Paul, and two angels. The background of the monument is painted, mostly not original, in imitation of the precious fabrics used as vestments during the most important liturgical ceremonies. The Corner chapel [see pp. 328-335) in the church of the Tolentini has a bust of Doge Marco, made in the early eighteenth century.

IIO

MAR.CO CORNER.

III

/

112

CLOISTER OF THE FORMER AUGUSTINIAN CONVENT IN SANTO STEFANO

A

t first reluctant to accept the ducal office, Andrea Contarini is said to have agreed only after being threatened with exile and the confiscation of his estate. The reason seems to have been a prophecy he had heard in

his youth that he would become doge and his reign would be marked by the most

terrible ordeal in Venice's history. His reign was certainly troubled. In 1368-1369, there was war with Trieste,

A

EARLY 14TH CENTURY

0

JUNE 5, 1382

lJ

sculpture

supported by the duke of Austria, which ended favorably for Venice. In 1372-1373, war broke out with the city's old enemy Francesco da Carrara of Padua, supported by Hungary. He was defeated, being compelled to pay an indemnity, and make a solemn apology. This was presented by his son Francesco Novello, received in the Great Council in the company of Petrarch, who had the trust of the ruler of Padua. Finally, the most serious war was fought against the Genoese. They came as close as Chioggia, a town in the lagoon, and threatened Venice itself. The doge summoned Vector Pisani to command the fleet and urged the people to make the ultimate sacrifice in defense of their freedom . He placed himself at the head of thirty-four galleys and retook Chioggia. The Treaty of Turin ended the war. Venice suffered some loss of territory and incurred huge expenses, but the city had stood fast and was safe. As his burial place, Andrea Contarini chose the cloister of the monastery of the Augustinian order at the church of Santo Stefano. The monument recalls the traditional Venetian arks of the early fourteenth century, with the sarcophagus supported by corbels decorated with carvings of plant motifs. At the center appears Jesus Christ enthroned with hand raised in blessing, bounded by two rectangular slabs of verde antico marble (or Thessalonian marble), accompanied by the Virgin Annunciate and

the Archangel Gabriel. The upper cornice is decorated with rich foliage. Recent restoration has revealed extensive traces of polychrome pigment on the figures in relief. In 1534, the cloister of the Augustinians was damaged by fire and the descen-

dants of Doge Contarini moved the plaque bearing the funerary eulogy, now in the Museo Archeologico of Venice, to their palace in Calle della Testa. At the end of the sixteenth century, Senator Giacomo Contarini had a new commemorative plaque carved bearing the family's arms surmounted by the ducal corno. It was placed

SCULPTOR UNKNOWN, late 14th century

between the corbels under the sarcophagus.

with 16th century additions

n3

BASILICA OF SANTI GIOVANNI E PAOLO

,,

MICHELE

A

1308

0

OCTOBER 16, 1382

W

ith great wealth, Morosini further enriched himself during the War of Chioggia by buying up some houses whose value rose fourfold when peace came. At the war's end, on the strength of his previous diplo-

matic career, he was made negotiator plenipotentiary for the Treaty of Turin with the

mediation of the duke of Savoy. He carried out this task with appreciable results and this was the basis of his election as doge. He was doge for a mere four months, before dying of the plague. His official portrait in the Great Council chamber, the Sala del Maggior Consiglio, bears a scroll recording the brevity of his government: "Pauca damus patriae, festina morte J:l

sculpture VENETIAN WORKSHOP, ea. 1382

J:l

J:l

repressi" ("We gave little to the homeland, struck down by an early death"). Despite the brevity of his dogeship, his wife Cristina Bondurnier and his son

mosaic

Giovanni erected a funerary monument to his memory that was unprecedented in

JACOBELLO DI BONOMO, 1382-1385

the city, such was the grandeur of the architectural project, the number of statues

sinopia

placed in it, the mosaic decorations, and the fresco above. Set at the most prominent

VENETIAN PAINTER, late 14th century

point in the basilica of Santi Giovanni e Paolo, opposite the Corner and Dolfin tombs built a few years earlier, it adopted the model of the suspended monument with an arcosolium like that of Doge Francesco Dandolo at the Frari (see pp. 92--si5], with the addition of new architectural elements typical of International Gothic derived from Northern Europe. The sculptural complex is mostly carved in soft Vicenza stone and completely painted with the same colors present in the mosaics, partly recovered during its recent conservative restoration. Only the face of the effigy and the doge's corno--and probably also the hands, now lost-are sculpted in Carrara marble. The commemorative inscription is flanked by two modillions bearing the Morosini arms and supporting the sarcophagus. On its front

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are carved seven corbels decorated with foliage that supported half-length per-

above

sonifications of the virtues, no longer present. Two of these sculptures were in the

BOTTEGA VENEZIANA,

Liechtenstein collection in Vienna, and two are in the Bode Museum in Berlin.

Virtue, 14th century

The doge, in his robes of office, wears a stole in which can be seen the hole to which was attached his sword, now lost. At the sides of the sarcophagus are two statues of deacons with censers. The vault of the arcosolium is finely adorned with gilded stars carved within circles on a blue ground. The lunette, laid with medium-small mosaic tiles, represents the Crucifixion: at left, the Virgin presents to Christ the doge kneeling and accompanied by his patron saint and, at right, St. John the Evangelist and the kneeling dogaressa are presented by John the Baptist, the patron saint of their only son. The mosaic by Jacobello di Bonomo was executed between 1382 and 1385. The pillars at the sides of the arcosolium have two orders of shell niches containing the statues of twelve saints and surmounted by two aediculae with the statues of the Virgin and Angel of the Annunciation. At the center of the mosaic pediment, set within a quatrefoil cornice, appears God the Father in the act of blessing. On the top of the pediment is the sculpture of St. Michael, the doge's patron saint. The monument was cornpleted by a large fresco, attributed to Guariento and Altichiero, of which today only the preparatory sinopia is visible.

MICHELE MOROS!Nl

Bode Museum, Berlin below

BOTTEGA VENEZIANA,

Virtue, 14th century Private collection, formerly The Liechtenstein Princely Collections, Vaduz-Vienna

BASILICA OF SANTI GIOVANNI E PAOLO

1382 > ANTONIO VENIER 1400· A

ea. 1330

0

NOVEMBER 23, 1400

A

ntonio Venier was the bailo or governor of the island of Tenedos in the Aegean, which he bravely defended from a attack by Genoa. In 1381, he was elected captain at Candia, now Heraklion (Crete). where he received

the unexpected news of his election. His achievements were not particularly notable,

except for his defense of Tenedos, but he was a compromise choice between weightier candidates who, in the delicate vote-trading between factions, were unable to win a majority. An important factor was that his was not from one of the old families that had dominated the government until then, but a new one. ll

sculpture

At home he had to deal with the serious problems that followed the War of

WORKSHOP OF THE DALLE MASEGNE

Chioggia, yet he managed to extend the republic's dominions. In the Levant, he

early 15th century

acquired Nauplia, Argos in the Morea, Scutari (Shkoder), and Durazzo (Durres), and regained Corfu. Through a shrewd policy of alliances with Gian Galeazzo Visconti, the duke of Milan, first an ally of the da Carrara family of Padua and then its enemy, he regained Treviso, Conegliano, and Ceneda. He also intervened in the internal struggles of Ferrara, protecting Nicolo d'Este, who was still a minor, and granting a loan of 50,000 ducats in exchange for the Polesine with Rovigo as the pledge for its repayment. He was stern in his treatment of his son Alvise, a libertine who was guilty of offending a patrician family. He was sentenced to the pozzi or dungeons of the Doge's Palace, where he fell ill and died. As instructed in his will, Doge Venier's funerary monument was erected on the left wall of the transept of the basilica of Santi Giovanni e Paolo. The

u8

Dogaressa Agnese da Mosto, his executor, together with his son Nicolo, oversaw construction of the complex, fashioned by local artists from the workshop of the Dalle Masegne family. This monument brought together and interpreted some of the stylistic innovations made a few years earlier in the tombs of the doges Dolfin, Corner, and Morosini, all placed on the walls of the nearby principal chapel of the Dominican basilica. At the front and sides of the sarcophagus, the seven cardinal and theological virtues were represented for the first time in Venice as full-length figures, no longer half-length, as they appeared on the sarcophagus of Doge Morosini, and set within niches finely carved with shell vaults. Their soft drapery and elegantly sculpted poses reveal a finer quality of execution than the larger sculptures placed at the sides and above the doge's effigy. They were very likely placed in a kind ~f marble setting like the one that appears above the sarcophagus on the monument to Doge Corner. The doge's effigy is similar to those of his predecessors.

In

1585,

the whole monument was dismantled

and recomposed during the construction of the chapel of the Rosary. The plaque with the inscription and the two Venier coats of arms were recarved. The sarcophagus was placed above the cornice of the new entrance portal of the chapel and the architecture of the stone sculpture with the five large niches was destroyed. The statues were no longer aligned with each other, as originally. Those depicting St. Anthony Abbot and St. Dominic are now at the sides of the sarcophagus, while the Virgin and Child, St. Peter, and St. Paul are supported by corbels on the wall above the doge's effigy. Unfortunately, the monument is now placed too high up to enable us to appreciate the fine quality of the carving.

120

ANTONIO VENIER

121

BASILICA OF SANTI GIOVAN N I E PAOLO

1400 >

MICHELE 1413 . STENO

N

icknamed dux stellifer because of the star on his coat of arms, Michele

A

ea. 1331

Steno had a prestigious career, with the exception of two short periods

0

DECEMBER 26, 1413

D

sculpture

of imprisonment. The first was for slandering Doge Marino Falier with

"multa enormia verba," the second for a naval defeat under his leadership, when Venetian admiral Vettor Pisani withdrew to Pola (Pula) during the war with Genoa. Without other setbacks, he had an easy path to the highest office in

1400.

His elec-

tion was welcomed with sumptuous celebrations that continued for over a year, with balls, bull baiting in the campi, jousting, and popular tournaments. A gifted politician, he possessed the insight and character that served Venice in the delicate balance of powers to expand its possessions in its hinterland in the Veneto. On the basis of an agreement with the widow of Gian Galeazzo Visconti, the duke of Milan, the city acquired Verona, Vicenza, Padua, Rovigo, Treviso,

122

VENETIAN SCULPTOR, ea. 1413

123

MICHELE STENO

125

BASILICA OF SANTI GIOVANNI E PAOLO

MOCENIGO

1423.

T

ommaso was the first of the seven doges that the various branches of the

A

ea. 1343

Mocenigo family gave to Venice in its long history.

0

APRIL 4, 1423

A great merchant as a young man, then an eminent diplomat, he

was commanding a naval squadron in the Levant when the Turks defeated the

French and Hungarian armies at Nicopolis in 1396. On the shores of the Black Sea, Mocenigo saved the king of Hungary and future Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund of Luxembourg, who remained his friend and to whom he was sent as ambassador on a number of occasions. In 1414, Tommaso, with Francesco Foscari and Antonio Contarini, was required to attend the negotiations between the Emperor Sigismund

n

sculpture

and Pope John XXII at Lodi in northern Italy. Here, news of his election reached

PIETRO DI NICCOLO LAMBERTI •

him, after initially being kept secret from the three ambassadors, each of whom

GIOVANNI DI MARTINO DA FIESOLE

thought he was the new doge. Then Mocenigo, informed of the appointment, left

NANNI DI BARTOLO

secretly and reached Verona and from there Marghera, where he embarked on the Bucintoro. Meanwhile, the emperor, having received the news, said he was pleased with the choice and regretted that the new doge was not present to receive his congratulations. With Mocenigo on the ducal throne, Venice extended its control over Friuli, having eliminated the patriarchate of Aquileia, which had encouraged Hungary to break the truce with the Venetians. Cividale, Feltre, and Belluno were subdued while the community of Cadore finally declared its loyalty to Venice. The naval squadron in the Adriatic also restored control over Dalmatia and freed the Albanian ports from Turkish pirates. Despite this expansion on land, Tommaso Mocenigo belonged to a family with close ties to the maritime trade, still

132

BASILICA OF SANTA MARIA GLORIOSA DEI FRARI /

)

F

A

JUNE 19, 1373

0

NOVEMBER

l,

FOSCARI 1 457·

1457

T

he election of the ambitious Francesco Foscari, who advocated a policy of war and expansion, led to a clash with the old and wealthy families, who cared more for sea power and trade. His predecessor Tommaso Mocenigo,

hoping to discredit him and prevent him from being appointed his successor, attacked him in a famous speech in which he described him as "our youthful procurator, " but in vain. Approaching his fiftieth year and with important achievements already behind him, Foscari was preferred to Pietro Loredan, the hero of the battle of Gallipoli, and

the Loredan faction continued to be at odds with him for the rest of his life. His dogeship, the longest in Venetian history (thirty-four years, six months,

n

sculpture

and eight days), was a period of perpetual warfare with frequently shifting alli-

NICCOLO DI GIOVANNI FIORENTINO

ances, against the Dukedom of Milan, first under Filippo Maria Visconti and then

ea. 1460

Francesco Sforza, and then by the side of the Republic of Milan until the peace of Lodi in 1454. The banner with the lion of St. Mark now fluttered across the mainland from the Isonzo to the Adda, from the Alps to the Po. In 1453, the Eastern Roman Empire fell, but Venice established good relations with the sultan and retaineci its commercial privileges as well as its dominions in the Levant. Foscari lost four sons to the plague and the fifth, Jacopo, was accused of corruption and then of murdering the head of the Council of Ten. He was exiled to Chania in Crete, where he died. The story is evoked in Byron's tragedy The Two Foscari and Verdi's opera I

due Foscari. At the age of eighty-three, he was forced to abdicate because age and ailments prevented him from taking part in the councils, but the real reason may have been retaliation by the Loredan party.

1 34

140

1 423

) 1 457

BASILICA OF SANTI GIOVANNI E PAOLO

,,

A

ea. 1392

0

MAY 5, 1462

T

he first official duty the doge had to perform after his election, was to follow the bier of Francesco Foscari at his funeral, showing himself to the people in the guise of a simple senator.

Some scholars compare him with the major figure that preceded him; others see

him as the logical outcome of his predecessor's dogeship. Certainly, the political and territorial framework that emerged from the Treaty of Lodi led almost naturally to a policy of maintaining and consolidating Venetian possessions rather than attempting further expansion.

In the portrait of the doge in the hall of the Great Council, he holds a scroll in his hand that reads: "Me duce pax patriae data sunt et tempora fausta" ("When I was doge, the homeland was given peace and a period of prosperity"). He was described by Marin Sanudo as "Dux pacificus" ("doge of peace"). He hewed to this policy, even when Pius II in 1459, at the Council of Mantua, asked Venice to join a crusade against the Turks, which no other government supported, except in words. Venice clearly understood the danger from the Turks, but the city was not ready for a war in which it would have to fight on its own, as it eventually happened. In fact, the doge's successor, Cristofaro Moro, began a very difficult war against Sultan Mehmed II. It lasted from 1463 until 1479, and ended in crushing defeat. Doge Malipiero did not leave a will, but his heirs commissioned Pierro Lombardo and his workshop to build the funerary monument on the wall of the left aisle near the door of the sacristy in the basilica of Santi Giovanni e Paolo, placed about four meters above the ground. Work began in 1463 and was completed many years later, probably in 1475. The material used, namely Istrian stone, cheaper and less valuable than white Carrara marble, and the length of time it took to complete the work suggest that Malipiero's heirs may have been in financial straits. Even the O

architecture and sculpture

doge's effigy is rather summarily finished. Part of the face is only sketched in, as

PIETRO LOMBARDO and WORKSHOP

well as a hand and a foot. The absence of gilding and traces of polychromy seem to confirm this conjecture.

144

148

PAS QVALE MALI Pl ERO

149

CHURCH OF SAN GIOBBE

1462 > CRISTOFORO MORO 1471 · H

ighly cultivated, Cristoforo Moro had studied in Padua. He was the rector (supreme magistrate) of Chioggia, Belluno, Brescia ( when it was besieged by the forces of Filippo Maria Visconti), and Padua, and twice

ambassador to Rome. He was one of the leading members of the party that urged

resistance to the Turkish advance in Greece and the Aegean. When the pacific A

SECOND HALF OF 1390

senator Malipiero had been elected doge, the war, understandably feared by many,

0

NOVEMBER 9, 1471

appeared closer. On July 22, 1463, the Greek Cardinal Bessarion arrived in Venice as a papal legate, to put forward the reasons for action. War was declared on July 28, a Venetian army landed in Morea on August

1

and the Greeks joined forces with it.

This was the beginning of a war that would continue for sixteen years. The following year Pope Pius II decided to take the Cross and summoned the Crusader fleet to Ancona. The doge would have preferred not to leave for the war, since Venice ll

architecture and sculpture

was already engaged in hostilities, but his advisers forced him to set sail. When he

PIETRO LOMBARDO

arrived, he found no crusaders, only the pope, who shortly after died. The war,

TULLIO and ANTONIO LOMBARDO

which began well, continued with severe losses in Morea and a devastating defeat

1471- 1493

at Negroponte (Chalcis in Greece) in 1470. Bessarion's gratitude to the republic and the doge as protectors of the Greeks was eloquently expressed in 1468 by his gift to St. Mark of his precious library, containing many books in Greek and some in Latin. It is still preserved in the Biblioteca Marciana. In 1469, the first book to be printed in Venice emerged from a press owned by Giovanni da Spira. This was the start of the extraordinary flowering of the Venetian book industry, for a period the most important in the world. During the dogeship of Cristofaro Moro, the term Comune '\ieneciarum was abandoned in favor of

Dominium or Signoria, more appropriate to the times. The doge was particularly close to the Franciscan friars minor, who since the fourteenth century had administered a small hospice with a chapel dedicated to San Giobbe in a remote area of Cannaregio, at the

end of the canal of the same name. Seeking to emulate Constantinople, which had two temples dedicated to St. Job in convents as refuges for the poor, Venice was one of the few cities on the Italian peninsula to dedicate numerous places of worship to Old Testament ,, saints: St. Zechariah, St. Simeon, St. Jeremiah, St. Moses, St. Samuel, and St. Job. The preacher monk Bernardino da Siena stayed twice in the hospice of San Giobbe and in 1443 predicted to Cristoforo Moro that he would be elected doge. Bernardino died in 1444, was canonized in 1450, and the following year Moro began to present substantial donations for the expansion of the monastery and to build a new church dedicated to the titular saint and St. Bernardino of Siena. After being elected in 1462, the doge gave the friars the relics of St. Luke, whose provenance and authenticity were long debated. Shortly before he died in 1471, Moro assigned to the Franciscan minors 10,000 ducats to continue building work on the church of San Giobbe and the chapels in the apses. He was buried in the principal chapel, together with his wife. His will names the architects Antonio Gambell 0, who was building the church of San Zaccaria at the time, and Lorenzo di Gian Francesco as being in charge of the extensions, but there are no tangible traces of their work in San Giobbe. As ambassador of the Serenissima to the Signory of Florence, Moro certainly had an opportunity to admire the architectural innovations made in those years. They included the Old Sacristy, the first Medici chapel in the basilica of San Lorenzo, commissioned by the banker Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici, designed by Filippo Brunelleschi, and completed in about 1429 (seep. 4]. Pietro Lombardo was also aware of the new architectural and sculptural vocabulary that was being developed in Florence. The funerary monument of Antonio Rosselli, which he built in 1467 in the basilica of the Santo in Padua, testifies to his

knowledge of the architect and sculptor of the Bruni monument, erected in 1450 by Bernardo Rossellino in the basilica of Santa Croce. This was his inspiration for his first commission in Venetian territory and subsequently the monument to doge Malipiero in the basilica of Santi Giovanni e Paolo in Venice [see pp. 144-149]. The reasons that led to Gambello giving up the work in San Giobbe and the date of entry of Pietro Lombardo and his assistants are not known, but it is likely that work had begun on the magnificent entrance portal of the church as early as 1471. Despite subsequent alterations, tampering and spoliation, it is still an

152

BASILICA OF SANTA MARIA GLORIOSA DEI FRARI

TRON

1 473·

B

efore turning to politics, Nicolo Tron had been a merchant. In particular, he

had spent fifteen years in Rhodes and accumulated a huge fortune, valued at some 60,000 ducats, about a third of it reinvested in real-estate purchases.

In the chronicles, he is described as "big with an ugly face" but with a very beautiful

wife, Dea Morosini. His life, however, was marred by misfortunes. Under his rule, the troubled war against the Turkish sultan continued, fought

A

1399

0

JULY 28, 1473

in Morea and the Aegean. In 1470, Venice suffered the terrible defeat of the loss of the Greek island ofNegroponte, heroically defended, but in vain, by the bailo, com-

•

mander Paolo Erizzo, executed by being sawn alive by the Turks. The doge's son Giovanni, a prisoner of war, was also tortured and killed on Negroponte. In 1472, an incursion by Turkish "raiders and arsonists" almost reached Udine, devastating everything in its path. Unfortunately, the alliance between Venice and the sworn enemy of the Ottomans, the Turkmen Sultan Uzun Hasan, who reigned from Cappadocia to Persia, failed to bear the hoped-for fruits, as he was also defeated by

lJ

architecture and sculpture

ANTONIO RIZZO, 1476-1479

Mehmed II in 1473. Partial compensation came from the pu:chase of the kingdom of Cyprus, first planned in these years. In 1472, Caterina Corner, "the daughter of the repub-

lic," was united with James Lusignan, king of Cyprus, after marrying him by proxy four years earlier. (Her name is frequently ltalianized as Caterina Cornaro and Anglicized as Catherine Cornaro.) This was the first step toward Venice's acquisition of the island. In the will he drew up in 1466, well before

his election to the highest political office of the Serenissima, Nicolo Tron arranged to be buried in the basilica of the Frari in the family tomb, whose exact location is unknown. His will was not respected. His "son Filippo, to honor the memory of his father as stated in the epitaph, won permission from the Franciscans to erect a monument covering the whole

1

55

1 47 1 ) 1 473

left-hand wall of the principal chapel and to place the new family tomb for him and his heirs in the floor at the foot of the sepulchre. Work began on the doge's funerary monument, the largest ever built until then, in 1476, and was completed in 1479. It is traditionally attributed to the sculptor and architect Antonio Rizzo. The imposing monument, divided into four orders, stands on a tall plinth of Istrian stone, decorated with slabs of pavonazzetto marble. The first order is articulated by three niches. In the central one, deeper than those at the sides, appears the standing figure of the doge, represented for the first time in Venetian monumental art as alive and life-size. His face is an accurate portrait and the garments were richly painted in imitation of the precious damask fabrics of the time, as can be seen from the traces of coloring that emerged during recent restoration work. On either side of the doge are the statues of Prudence and Charity. The second order bears at the center the inscription in Latin carved in Roman characters, with at its sides two square reliefs with pairs of putti with vases and fruits. They reveal that Antonio Rizzo had a direct knowledge of the reliefs of the same subject placed on the lower part of the cantoria sculpted by Donatello for Florence cathedral, now in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo. At the ends of the same order, set within niches, appear two warriors holding colored shields bearing the Tron family's insignia. The pose of the warrior on the left shows that Rizzo also knew Donatello's bronze David, a further reflection of his period in Florence. There he would also have had an opportunity to admire Pollaiolo's drawings, which inspired him in the execution of his masterpiece, the sculpture of Adam on the Doge's Palace. At the center of the third order is the sarcophagus, decorated on the front with reliefs in ancient style depicting the profiles of Roman emperors encircled by wreaths and with the three virtues placed on it. Above the sarcophagus is the effigy of the doge lying on a particularly ornate bed bearing the winged scallop shell, a symbol of Resurrection. The doge's face faithfully repeats the features of the statue in the first order. Two large slabs of pavonazzetto marble are inserted at the sides of the coffin, probably ancient pieces reused. At either end of the third order, and in all the niches of the fourth, there are statues of the virtues, clearly by Rizzo's workshop. The top of the monument is decorated with a large round-headed arch, inside which is carved the Risen Christ above a sarcophagus. At the sides of the arch are the archangel Gabriel and the Virgin Annunciate, and finally, above rosettes, appears the half-length figure of God the Father with his hand raised in blessing. The whole monument is built of Istrian stone, with the exception of the finest sculptures, for which the nobler white Carrara marble was used. Recent restoration has revealed traces of gilding on the architectural apparatus of the monument and on the attributes and borders of the garments of the virtues.

NI COLO TRON

1

59

BASILICA OF SANTI GIOVANNI E PAOLO

'

1473> NICOLO MARCELLO 1 474· A

1 397

0

DECEMBER 1, 1474

B

efore embarking on public life, Nicolo Marcello had been engaged for years

in trade in Damascus. Devoted to charitable works and attentive to the principles of sound administration, he continued the work of restoring the state's

l'J

architecture and sculpture

PIETRO LOMBARDO and WORKSHOP ea. 1476

finances begun by his predecessor Tron. The terrible war with the Ottoman Turks continued under his rule. Freed on their eastern front from the threat of Uzun Hasan and now victorious in Morea and the Aegean, they decided to go on the offensive in Albania. In 1473, they laid siege to Scutari (Shkoder ), whose heroic defense directed by the provincial governor Antonio Loredan became legendary. A large Turkish army failed to capture the stronghold. Mehmed II himself eventually took command of operations in the attempt to seize Scutari, now clefended by the governor Antonio da Lezze; but even the sultan failed to prevail over the extraordinary efforts of the defenders. During the dogeship of Nicolo Marcello, a conspiracy in Cyprus was suppressed by the action of the ships of Pietro Mocenigo. He also decided to support Caterina Corner, the young widowed queen, with two councillors and a governor. This gave rise to the Venetian protectorate, a prelude to direct rule. In September 1474, Loredan was appointed Captain General at Sea, but during the ceremony to install him in the office he fell ill and died soon after. The doge was born in Palazzo Marcello, which still stands by the canal of Rio di Sama Marina.

Here, the church of the same name was demolished during the Napoleonic suppressions of religious orders. In his will, he requested to be buried in the Carthusian church of Sant'Andrea del Lido, in the family tomb he built in 1451. The sources say t~at his wish was fulfilled but, though he had held the highest office of the Republic of Venice for only one year, his heirs considered the sepulchre too modest and had a new memorial erected to him in the family's parish church, made by Pietro Lombardo and his workshop after 1476. After the church was suppressed, the monument was moved to the basilica of Santi Giovanni e Paolo on the wall of the left aisle, probably at the same height from the ground as in its original location. The architectural composition is reminiscent of an ancient triumphal arch and the inscription is supported by two flying putti in high relief. Inside the arch, supported by columns with shafts in Bardiglio marble, the sarcophagus is covered with two slabs in Tuscan pavonazzetto marble. A second trough-shaped sarcophagus rests on this, elegantly supported by unusual molded bases set between two lions supporting the shields with the emblem of the Marcello family. The effigy of the doge portrays him in his ceremonial robes with his head raised on two pillows, probably to be better admired from below. On the Carrara marble lunette above the effigy an important novelty was introduced: the presentation of the doge to the Virgin enthroned, traditionally painted on board or laid in mosaic, here for the first time carved in high relief. Nicolo Marcello is portrayed kneeling and wears the

camauro, having doffed the ducal coma placed at the foot of the throne as a sign of respect. The striking features of the doge's face in profile probably record his actual appearance. Here, the figure of the dogaressa and the patron saints are replaced by the patron saints of Venice, namely St. Mark, who introduces the doge to the Virgin, and St. Theodore. The legs of the throne on which the Virgin sits with the Child standing on her lap recall Donatello's Madonna and Child Enthroned from between 1446 and 1453 for the high altar of the basilica of the Santo in Padua. On either

side of the monument, divided into two orders by the main entablature, are placed four virtues within niches, among which the sculpture of Justice is particularly fine ( opposite page). The architectural structure of the monument is in Istrian stone, while the sculptures are in Carrara marble. There are no traces of gilding or polychromy, probably removed after the monument was moved to its present location.

166

1473 ) 1 474

N !COLO MARCELLO

\

BASILICA OF SANTI GIOVANNI E PAOLO

•

P

ietro was born in 1406 to Leonardo, a procurator of St. Mark and brother to

A

JANUARY 3, 1406

Doge Tommaso Mocenigo. After a youth spent in commerce, he embarked

0

FEBRUARY 23, 1476

O

architecture and sculpture

on a naval career, becoming captain of a galley in 1442 and alternating

command on the sea with political assignments. In 1470, after the Venetian defeat of

Negroponte, he was elected Captain General at Sea. The following year, he limited himself to devastating and pillaging the coast of Asia Minor. In 1472, having received reinforcements and been joined by a papal fleet, he conquered some coastal towns of Karamania, returning them to the ruler of the area, a relative of the Sultan of Persia Uzun Hasan and a Venetian ally. He attacked Satalia (Adalia) and captured Smyrna, which he destroyed. In 1473, it would have been possible, although certainly not easy, to launch an

attack on Constantinople, since Mehmed II was tied up fighting Uzun Hasan in the East. But the situation in Cyprus forced the republic to send Mocenigo, since King James II of Lusignan had died and the position of his widow, the Venetian Caterina Corner, was very precarious. The supporters of Charlotte, the late king's half sister, had seized power at court; Pope Sixtus IV and the king of Naples endorsed their claim. Mocenigo landed on the island on August 24, 1473, and re-established Venetian supremacy; but shortly after his departure a conspiracy assassinated Andrea Corner, the queen's uncle, and a relative, Marco Bembo. In February 1474, Mocenigo sent a new squadron from Methoni to Cyprus, finally re-establishing Venetian rule, while the rest of the fleet crossed under the command of the captain general to the coasts of Albania, giving all possible assistance to Antonio Loredan in the heroic defense of Scutari. Here, Pietro received the news of his election. During his brief reign, peace

PIETRO LOMBARDO in collaboration with

negotiations were held with the Turks, but failed to reach an agreement. Meanwhile,

ANTONIO LOMBARDO

Mehmed II conquered the last western trading bases on the Black Sea: Kaffa

TULLIO LOMBARDO

(Genoese) in June 1475 and soon after Venetian Tanais.

1476

171

Work began on the monument in 1476, the year of the doge's death. He left no instructions in his will for his burial; the cenotaph was commissioned by his brothers, who asked for it to be built on the left side of the counter-facade of the basilica of Santi Giovanni e Paolo. It was paid for by the fortune accumulated by Doge Mocenigo during his numerous conquests, as described in the epitaph on the tomb chest at the base of the monument. One of Pietro's two brothers, Giovanni, is also mentioned as doge, having been elected in 1478. The structure and size of this monument, rightly attributed to the architect and sculptor Pietro Lombardo, recall those of the tomb of Doge Nicolo Tron in the basilica of the Frari (see pp. 155-rfo] built in the same years by Antonio Rizzo. In both cases, these are the first funerary monuments of doges with bases that rest directly on the marble floors, permanently breaking with the tradition of wallmounted tombs. The memorial to Pietro Mocenigo and, on the left, that to Giovanni Mocenigo already rested against the west end of the basilica. After the death of Alvise I Mocenigo in 1577 (see pp. 238-24-3), it was decided to make the whole counter-facade architecturally unique by erecting a large central monument to Alvise I and Dogaressa Loredana Marcello, so creating a whole wall dedicated to the family. On that occasion, the monument to Pietro Mocenigo was incorporated into the arch and raised in such a way as to rest on the new, all too striking, Istrian stone base of the recent seventeenth-century architecture. Its present location altered the sightline desired by Pietro Lombardo, who, inspired by the cenotaph of Cardinal Brancaccio, the work of Donatello and Michelozzo in the church of Sant' Angelo a Nilo in Naples (seep. 3], introduced the figures of the three ages of man into the Mocenigo memorial in the act of supporting the tomb chest inside the great central arch. The iconography of the monument celebrates the doge as Captain General at Sea of the Venetian Republic. He was portrayed for the first time as standing on the sarcophagus, holding the banner in his right hand and wearing armor ( visible under his official robes), painted and gilded with the elaborate damask patterning of the time. The sarcophagus was also a novelty in Venice. Instead of depicting religious scenes, two reliefs narrating some of the glorious deeds of Pietro Mocenigo make their appearance. At the sides of the doge, two elegant pages support the shield with the white and blue insignia of the Mocenigo family and the captain's staff of

172

command. On the wings of the monument appear three orders of niches with shell vaults painted blue, perhaps to accentuate their depth. Within the six niches are placed statues of warriors, executed by the workshop of Pietro Lombardo. On the spandrels of the arch are carved two Mocenigo coats of arms in polychromy and with gilded ribbons. Above the cornice, at the sides of the attic, once stood sculptures of the patron saints of the city, St. Mark and St. Theodore. Because of lack of space after the elevation of the seventeenth-century arch, they were moved to the niches of the adjacent monument to Alvise I Mocenigo. The attic could also be interpreted as the sarcophagus of Christ, depicted higher up as the Risen Christ. The banner typical of the iconography of the Resurrection has been lost. On the front of the attic there is a relief with the three Marys at the tomb of Christ, a clear allusion to the sculpture placed on the shallow arch above, with two angels set at the sides above rosettes. The whole monument is in Carrara marble and all its architectural and ornamental details are exquisitely carved. The base on which the monument rests consists of the central epitaph, the only element in Istrian stone, bounded by two panels depicting trophies of weapons. At the extremities below the side wings are carved two reliefs depicting episodes of the labors of Hercules, clearly alluding to the doge's valiant feats. They have been attributed to Pietro's young sons, Antonio and Tullio Lombardo.

PIETRO MOCENIGO

BASILICA OF SANTI GIOVANNI E PAOLO

VEND A

r393

0

MAY 5, r478

•

A

ndrea Vendramin is said to have posed for Pisanello in his youth, perhaps because of his pleasing appearance. His election was criticized by the old patrician families because Vendramin belonged to one of the families that

had entered the Great Council only in r381, at the time of the Chioggia war. He had accumulated important offices, but always cherished the mercantile spirit, developed in youth with his brother in Alexandria. He knew how to win the people's favor through generosity and sensibility, qualities he showed on several occasions. He distinguished himself by donations of money, the payment of bail for prisoners being held for debt and dowries for young women who would have been forced to enter a nunnery. Yet he was unable to save one of his sons, who was convicted of murder. During the years of his dogeship, the war continued with the Turks, who in 1477 made a new and terrible raid in Friuli. In 1478, the Albanian stronghold of Croia (Kruje) surrendered after a siege lasting more than a year and the inhabitants, who had been promised their lives, were nearly all put to death. Scutari still held out heroically. Doge Vendramin made his will four years before his election with precise instructions for the erection of a splendid funerary monument in the family's favored church, Santa Maria dei Servi, almost completely demolished in r8r3-1814. Some drawings in the Musee du Louvre in Paris and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London document what may have been a first project commissioned from Andrea del Verrocchio. He was in Venice in r486, working on the wax model for the equestrian monument to Bartolomeo Colleoni. Verrocchio's death in 1488 appears to have led to the Vendramin memorial being assigned to Tullio Lombardo. Saved from the Napoleonic demolitions, it was recomposed in the basilica of Santi Giovanni e Paolo on the initiative of Nicolo Vendramin Calergi, a descendant of the doge. Its new location, on the left wall of the principal chapel of the basilica, disIl

architecture and sculpture

placed the monuments of the doges Marco Corner (see pp. rn6-n I J and Giovanni

TULLIO LOMBARDO, ea. r493

Dolfin [see pp. rn2-rn5]. Its architecture recalls that of Roman triumphal arches.

Above a plinth consisting of three steps and a bas-relief decorated in Istrian stone,

TULLIO LOMBARDO,

rises the tripartite monument wholly built out of white Carrara marble with gilding

Adamo, 1490-1495 The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

on the ornaments and the doge's garments. The central .part is deeper than the wings at the sides, and the imposing composite columns support a rich entablature from which rises a round-headed arch, its deep intrados decorated with coffering in the ancient style. At the center of the large plinth is a plaque in classicizing style bearing the epitaph and supported by two winged figures. On the pillars supporting the columns, two female figures are carved in relief. They may represent Minerva, on the left, and Judith with the head of Holofernes on the right. At their sides are two carvings in high relief depicting putti playing with fantastic marine figures, undoubtedly reproducing ancient models, of the kind that Tullio and Antonio Lombardo carved in the reliefs on the base of the monument to Pietro Mocenigo [see pp. 171-177). On the bases of the pillars of the bays at the sides are carved the Vendramin coats of arms, flanked by two octagonal semi-pedestals, which now support St. Mary Magdalene and St. Catherine. These are works by Lorenzo Bregno brought from the main altar of the church of Santa Marina, likewise destroyed during the Napoleonic suppressions of religious houses. These clumsy sculptures are not well suited to the early Renaissance harmony of the monument. Originally their place was occupied by the magnificent warriors, now placed inside the black marble niches, which contained the statues of the first parents, Adam and Eve, removed in 1818 as inappropriate for a place of worship. Nicolo Vendramin Calergi, who had commissioned the challenging transfer of the monument a few years earlier, took home the sculptures judged "indecent." The famous Adam, the only work in the complex to be signed by Tullio Lombardo, remained for a few years in Ca' Vendramin Calergi. The house was purchased in 1844 with its collections by Marie-Caroline of Bourbon, Duchess of Berry, the mother of

186

TULLIO LOMBARDO,

Shield Holders, 1490-1495 Bode Museum, Berlin

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Henry of Bourbon, Count ofChambord, the legitimate heir to the throne ofFrance. In 1865, the duchess auctioned off part of her collection at the Hotel Drouot in Paris. In 1936, after several changes of ownership, the Adam entered the collections of the Metropolitan Museum in New York, where it is now. The Eve has a quite different history. The sources confirm that Tullio Lombardo never delivered the finished work and a mediocre sculpture of the same subject took its place, executed in about 1563 by Francesco Segala. This is still preserve d in the courtyard of Ca' Vendramin Calergi. Recent studies have revealed that an unfinished sculpture in Carrara marble, with the head subsequently recarved and interpreted as Venus, could be Tullio Lombardo's famous Eve, executed for the Vendrarnin monument and preserved since the mid-sixteenth century in the garden of Villa Brenzone at Punta San Vigilio on Lake Garda. Between the two columns, the tall sarcophagus is articulated by small pilasters adorned in ancient style and gilded. It contains niches housing the seven virtues at the front and sides, depicted in ancient drapery and with their attributes. They were most likely executed in collaboration with Antonio Lombardo, Tullio's younger brother.

The catafalque above the tomb chest is supported by two eagles, still partly gilded, and a porphyry tondo with wings. The elegant effigy of Doge Vendramin, in his robes of office, is watched over by three pages bearing candles, while the three large rectangular slabs in veined Carrara marble, set within frames molded and gilt, recall the examples on the Florentine tombs already imitated by Pietro Lombardo in the Malipiero monument [see pp. 144-149]. The black marble niches contain warriors and set above them are two tondi with mythological reliefs: at right, Perseus on horseback with the head of Medusa; at left, the Rape of Deianira. This compositional device recalls the round reliefs placed above the side bays of the Arch of Constantine in Rome. Above the rich entablature finely carved and gilt, at the sides of the arch, within rectangular niches decorated with slabs of pavonazzetto marble, are the kneeling sculptures of the archangel Gabriel, at left, and the Virgin Annunciate at right. In the spandrels of the arch, there are two medallions with profiles of Roman emperors with laurel wreaths. Inside the arch, on the lunette carved in high relief, we can admire the typical scene depicted on many funerary monuments of the doges. The doge kneels, presented by St. Mark to the Virgin enthroned with the Child, with St. Theodore on the right and a young man praying, his identity unknown. At the top of the monument, two female figures like winged sirens hold a circle depicting the Christ Child with hand raised in the act of blessing. At the sides there were originally two pages bearing shields, which were never returned to the monument after the demolition of the church during the Napoleonic suppressions. As early as 1814 they were owned by the art dealer Francesco Pajaro. In 1841 , they were purchased by the Kaiser Friedrich Museum in Berlin and in 1945 they were seriously damaged in a destructive fire . They are now in storage at the Bode Museum in Berlin.

,,

ANDREA VENDRAMIN

BASILICA OF SANTI GIOVANNI E PAOLO

GIOVANNI

U

nlike many of his predecessors, Giovanni Mocenigo did not rise to the

A

1408

dignity of being a procurator of St. Mark, and he had no particular

0

SEPTEMBER 14, 1485

Il

architecture and sculpture

diplomatic or military merits. The chroniclers agree that he became doge

because of the importance of his family (he was the brother of Pierro and grandson

of Tommaso, both doges) and his honesty, which also won him the support of the common people. Venice attained the long-desired peace with the Turks in 1479, after protracted negotiations conducted by Giovanni Dario, but it had to give up Negroponte, Lernnos, Argos, and the Mani peninsula (the mountainous region of the southern Peloponnese). It was also forced to give up Croia (Kruje) in Albania and even Scutari, which had never surrendered. Within two years it had to pay roo,ooo ducats. In return, the Turks returned some territory and above all allowed duty-free free trade throughout their empire, against a payment of ro,ooo ducats a year. Soon after this, hostilities flared up again on the Italian mainland. Amid continuously shifting alliances, Venice clashed with enemies grouped around Pope Sixtus IV. who in 1483 also laid the city under a ban. The patriarch decided not to make the papal bull public and the state resisted until there was a change of alliances and the signing of the Treaty of Bagnolo. It enabled Venice to definitively add the Polesine ( to the south of the city) to its possessions. In 1479, Giovanni lost his wife to the plague. For the first time, the dogaressa had died before the doge and the occasion meant a new ceremonial had to be planned. The doge died in 1485, according to some commentators, also of the plague. The monument to Doge Giovanni Mocenigo was commissioned, as the epitaph

TULLIO LOMBARDO

recalls, by his son Leonardo. It stands on the right side of the counter-facade of

in collaboration with

the basilica of Santi Giovanni e Paolo, while on the left side, forming a companion

SANTE LOMBARDO,

piece, is the cenotaph of his brother Pietro Mocenigo [see pp. 171-177]. In 1646,

completed in

1.522

1 95

GIOVANN I MOCENIGO

GALLERIE DELL'ACCADEMIA /

A

1413

0

AUGUST 14, 1486

M

arco and Agostino Barbarigo, brothers and both doges, shared a single funerary monument, which had a checkered history. There were three Barbarigo brothers all of whom enjoyed a good

reputation. As Domenico Malipiero observed, they might all have become "doges given

their excellent standing, being invariably respected and lovers of the common good." Marco received the investiture in 1485 on the Giant's Staircase, recently added Jl

ll

architecture and sculpture

to the Doge's Palace. Venice was being ravaged by plague at the time and had

GIOVANNI BUORA AND

just emerged from the war over Polesine. For these reasons, the doge planned a

BARTOLOMEO DI DOMENICO DUCA,

prudential policy but lacked the time to shape it. In fact, he died after less than a

early 16th century

year in office, some sources report, after a violent clash with his brother Agostino.

bronzes MASTER OF THE

According to Marin Sanudo, the doge had rebuked him: "Messer Agostino, you are

BARBARIGO RELIEFS, ea. 1515

doing everything to ensure I die, so that you can take my place." He is also said, in support of his reputation, to be "just and wise/ and that on his deathbed he had summoned his four children and reminded them of the benefits they had received from the state and the importance of the public good. Agostino, by contrast, was a decisive and authoritarian figure of"adrnirable presence," with attitudes ( dangerous in Venice) better suited to an absolute ruler than a doge. He immediately made it clear that he would renounce the doge's coma, if they were to elect him as Marco's brother and not on his own merits. During his government, Venice was free from war in the Levant and could turn its energies to Italy. In 1487, there was a conflict in Trentino with Archduke Sigismund of Austria, which ended without victory for either side.

In 1494, King of France Charles VIII entered Italy and advanced without difficulty to Florence.

GALLERIE DELL'ACCADEMIA

BARBARIGO After some hesitation, Venice organized an Italian league and took on the greatest burden in the war. Charles was defeated at the Battle of Fornovo and forced out of Italy. The republic occupied the ports of Puglia in the same year, in agreement with

A

1419

the king of Naples. In the same period, it was active in the Tyrrhenian Sea, where it

0

SEPTEMBER

supported Pisa in its struggle for independence from Florence. In 1499, an alliance with Louis XII of France against Ludovico il Moro, regent of the Duchy of Milan, brought the republic considerable gains in Lombardy with the conquest of Cremona and the Ghiara (or Gera) d'Adda. Unfortunately, however, Venice's entanglements in Italy prompted the Turkish Sultan Bayezid to attack the Venetian possessions in Greece. The war went badly. The Venetian fleet was defeated at Zonchio near Lepanto; Modone (Methoni) and Corone (Koroni), important ports in the Morea, were captured by the Turks, and in 1499 a Turkish raid devastated Friuli. Then things began to look up. Venice took Kefalonia and in the end was able to keep it together with Santa Maura (Lefkada ), already in its possession, but the loss of the Morean ports was inevitable. All the same, a purchase of extraordinary importance was made in the Levant. Caterina Corner was compelled to cede the kingdom of Cyprus to the republic (by herself, she could never have survived long on the throne). On returning to Venice in 1489, she had a splendid reception and was given the fiefdom of Asolo, where she retained the title and honors of queen of Jerusalem, Cyprus, and Armenia, with an appanage of 8,000 ducats a year. There, revered and loved, Caterina created a small but refined court, where Pietro Bembo was a distinguished figure. Agostino Barbarigo ruled without paying much heed to the doge's oath of office, and at his death the republic established a special magistracy to investigate his conduct and prevent the doge in future "from making himself so all-powerful as did

,,

Messer Agostino Barbarigo." Following the inquiry, his heirs had to pay the state a substantial sum. Until

1805,

the funerary monument of the Doges Marco and Agostino

Barbarigo were set against the wall of the right aisle of the church of Santa Maria

20, 1501

202

niches enclosing sculptures of St. Mark and St. Augustine, the Archangel Gabriel and the Virgin Annunciate. This last has recently been identified as the sculpture now in the church of St. Francis in Pula, Istria (Croatia). The two sarcophagi of the doges rested on corbels within the two lateral arches, above the gilded slabs on which their epitaphs were carved. The effigies of the Barbarigo brothers, in their official robes, were placed on catafalques supported on the feet of wild beasts. Within the central arch, there was a small altar decorated with three bronze plaques depicting the Assumption of the Virgin, the Twelve Apostles, and the Coronation of the Virgin, works attributed to the Master of the Barbarigo Reliefs. Executed in about 1515, they are now in the Galleria Giorgio Franchetti at the Ca' d'Oro in Venice. The pilasters above the altar, carved with ornaments typical of the early Renaissance together with other sculptural devices, have been identified with those on the walls of the loggia of Villa Valmarana ai Nani in Vicenza. The two doges were also depicted kneeling at the sides of the altar. The statue of Doge Agostino Barbarigo praying, in Carrara marble sculpted by Giovanni Buora, fortunately survived the nineteenth-century demolitions and is now in the ante-sacristy of the basilica Santa Maria della Salute, while the sculptural group depicting the Resurrection, which was above the altar in the middle, set between the two windows, is preserved in the Scuola Grande di San Giovanni Evangelista.

204

1485 > 1486 1486) 1501

MAR.CO BAR.BARIGO

I AGOSTINO

BAR.BARIGO

205

BASILICA OF SANTI GIOVANNI E PAOLO

l

Ol >

LORE DAN

1521 .

L

eonardo Loredan received a good classical education and at the same time

A

NOVEMBER 16, 1436

studied navigation and trade. As a procurator and a member of the Collegio

0

JUNE 21, 1521

dei Savi, he was one of the three savi in charge of concluding the pact of

mutual defense with the allies when Charles VIII of France invaded Italy. On being invested with the ducal corno, he hastened to confirm the peace treaty with Sultan Bayezid II in 1502 and 1503. Then in spring 1508, Venice embarked on a campaign against Maximilian of Habsburg, securing possession of the cities

of Trieste, Gorizia, and Fiume (Rijeka ). Having raised itself to a European power, Venice aroused envy and fear to the point where a coalition of European states was formed, called the League of Cambrai. It was promoted by Emperor Maximilian, Louis XII of France, Ferdinand II of Aragon, Ladislaus II of Hungary, Francesco II Gonzaga, Charles III of Savoy, Alfonso I of Este, and Pope Julius II (the moving force behind the alliance). Formally, its purpose was to oppose the Turks, but in reality its aim was to curb the power of Venice. The city then suffered the shattering defeat of Agnadello ( r 509 ), leading to the almost total loss of its mainland possessions. This was abetted by the pro-imperial local nobility, while the lower classes remained faithful to Venice, even at the cost of their lives. Then, as the alliances started to shift, Venice signed the Treaty of Blois with the French and won the victory of Marignano, followed by the Treaty of Brussels. It had succeeded in defending itself at a critical time, partly thanks to the enlightened guid-

O:

ance of its doge, and by 1517 could claim to have recovered most of its possessions. The National Gallery in London contains the famous portrait in three-quarter

GIOVANNI GRAPIGLIA

profile of Leonardo Loredan. It fully conveys his stern pride, as well as being one of Giovanni Bellini's finest works in the opinion of many scholars [seep. 23]. Doge Leonardo Loredan died in 1521 , but as early as 1517 his son Lorenzo asked

architecture DANESE CATTANEO ea. 1566-ca. 16!6

O:

sculpture DANESE CATTANEO

the Dominican fathers for permission to erect an important funerary monument to

GIROLAMO CAMPAGNA

him in the principal chapel of the basilica of Santi Giovanni e Paolo. The doge was

ea. 1566-ca. 16!6

208

1501) 1.521

buried in the family tomb at the foot of the monument, covered with a gray marble slab without any inscription. Also buried in the same tomb was Francesco Loredan, doge from 1752 to 1762, the last descendant of the Loredan branch of Santo Stefano, since his nephew Andiea had died from smallpox a few years earlier. The initial project desired by the doge's son was never built, perhaps because it was seen as over-ambitious. The sources mention an altar with a bronze funerary monument, probably inspired by that of Cardinal Zen in the narthex of St. Mark's. The years passed and finally, in 1566, on one of his visits to Venice, Giorgio Vasari mentions that a start had been made on a monument to the doge by Danese Cattaneo. He was a sculptor, poet, and architect of Tuscan origin, who had worked with Jacopo Sansovino first in Rome and then in Venice. Cattaneo produced some important sculptures, including the monument to Pietro Bembo in the basilica of Sant'Antonio in Padua and the monument to Giano Fregoso in the church of Sant' Anastasia in Verona, completed in 1565, and praised by Vasari himself. He was inspired by the arch of the Gavi in Verona, dating from the first century AD, in both the design of the Fregoso monument and, with some variations, in the composition of the Loredan tomb. Above the bench in Verona marble rises a tall plinth in Carrara marble. This is decorated with mirrored slabs of Grigio Carnico marble. On the plinth, a strip of black Belgian marble divides the base of the monument-used as a stall by the monks-horizontally from the architectural part above. This is articulated by four large columns in Carrara marble with composite capitals that divide the monument into three compartments. The central one, above a tall tomb chest with a black marble plaque bearing the epitaph, houses the effigy of the doge, no longer reclining but seated in his official robes. He is depicted as intent on diplomatically mediating the crisis that arose between the Republic of Venice, represented armed to his left (the sword blade has been lost), and the League of Cambrai, represented allegorically, to his right as Minerva. This figure has a closed crown and her shield bears the arms of the foreign powers allied against the Serenissima. It is the first funerary monument to depict, albeit allegorically, a historical episode sculpted in the round. Behind the three figures, the space is divided into three partitions containing black slabs ( actually plain plaster painted in imitation of black Belgian marble), between molded frames in Carrara marble. This architectural motif is of Tuscan origin. It is found in the monument to Doge Andrea Vendiamin (which, since 1815, has stood opposite the Loredan monument, see pp. 207-211 ), and the one to Doge Francesco Venier in the church of San Salvador [see pp. 224-231 J erected in 1556 by Jacopo Sansovino. Cattaneo collaborated for many years with Sansovino. His influence also appears in the sculpture in the niche in the right-hand compartment

210

depicting Peace, which repeats the pose of the famous bronze statue executed by Jacopo for the loggia of the bell tower in St. Mark's Square. The niche in the left-hand compartment contains the statue of Abundance supporting its attribute, the cornucopia. Above and below the niches containing the allegories, there are four bas-reliefs in patinated bronze, recently attributed to Cattaneo, which allude to historical episodes that occurred during Loredan's dogeship. Level with the composite capitals of the first architectural order are three friezes carved with panoplies and trophies of weapons. In the center, set within a circle, appears the winged lion of St. Mark. The imposing entablature in Carrara marble contains a pulvinate (i.e. convex) frieze in black Varenna marble from quarries near Lake Como. The same marble decorates the panels of the four pillars of the upper order of the monument, with at the center a bas-relief with Venice personified as Justice receiving the keys of the reconquered cities. It is attributed to Girolamo Campagna and his workshop. In the side compartments, between the pillars, are two large coats of arms of the Loredan family in Carrara marble, surmounted by the doge's como. Above the upper entablature, on the sloping sides of the pediment, are two reclining female figures, attributed to the Campagna workshop. Danese Cattaneo died in Padua in 1572 and was unable to complete the monument. The statues depicting Abundance, Venice, and the League of Cambrai bear his signature on the base, while the statue of the doge is signed by Girolamo Campagna and was carved around 1604, perhaps on the model of a lost sketch by his master Cattaneo. Giovanni Grapiglia, of whom little is known, had probably worked earlier as a stone cutter in the Cattaneo bottega and after the latter's death he took over the direction of the work. It is not known whether he made any changes to the original project. The monument was finally completed by about 1616.

LEONARDO LOR.EDAN

2II

CHURCH OF SAN FRANCESCO DELLA VIGNA

>

W

hen Andrea was orphaned of his father Francesco at an early age, his grandfather Triadano oversaw his education and took him to various embassies in Europe and the Ottoman Empire. Andrea married

young, but after his wife's death in childbirth he moved to Constantinople, where

A

BARDOLINO, APRIL 17, 1455

he remained for about twenty years, successfully engaging in the grain trade. He had

0

DECEMBER 28, 1538

three or perhaps four children by a Greek woman. One of them in particular, Alvise, who became a friend to the grand vizier and the sultan, accumulated a great fortune. In 1499, Andrea tried to inform the Venetian Government that the Sublime

Porte was making preparations for war, forwarding them as encrypted letters (for example by writing "carpets" instead of "ships"). He was discovered and imprisoned for thirty-two months. After the war, he was freed and returned to Venice, then sent back to Constantinople as bailo (ambassador). Returning to Venice, he was a commissary in the field at the battle of Agnadello on May 14, 1509. Amid the defeat he succeeded in saving the Venetian banner. He displayed extraordinary skill in organizing the recapture of Padua, which had been ceded to Emperor Maximilian. Here, he struck hard at the enemies of Venice and made various rules to favor the peasants who had remained loyal to the republic. He led the resistance to the siege by the imperial troops, who tried in vain to retake the city. Later he took Brescia, but the city was recaptured by the French and he himself taken prisoner. Subsequently, when the alliances shifted again he was freed and collaborated with the French to recover many of the Venetian territories. In 1.523, he became doge, but the election was troubled, with many fearing his

imperious and authoritarian character. In 1.526, he signed the League of Cognac with Francis I king of France and Pope Clement VII against the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. But his hopes were shattered when the Imperial army defeated the French at Pavia and then sacked Rome. In 1534, he had the great sorrow of learning that his natural son Alvise had been murdered in Transylvania while attempting to become king of Hungary. In 1537, for three days he resisted the Senate in an attempt to avoid war against the Turks, united with the pope and Charles V, but his warnings were l1

212

architecture

ignored. This serious error cost Venice the loss of Nauplia in Greece. A voracious

JACOPO SANSOVINO, rnid- 16th century

eater, he is said to have died after a banquet of fish.

In 1535, the doge had made his will, expressing his desire to build a mausoleum

in the church of San Francesco della Vigna, after renouncing burial in the church of San Salvador. Already in 1.525, he had renewed the large family palace, which still standson Campo di San Francesco. The heirs sold it to the Republic of Venice, which in r 564 gave it to Pope Pius IV It became the seat of the Apostolic Nunciature of the Holy See to the Serenissima, which remained active until 1797. In his plans to renew the city of Venice, Doge Gritti personally chose the project by J acopo Sansovino for the rebuilding of the church of San Francesco della Vigna and on August

15, 1534, he officially laid its foundation stone. In 1536, he secured the use of the side walls of the principal chapel of the church, then being built, for two funerary monuments. The first was intended for himself and the second for his grandfather Triadano Gritti, who had started him on his diplomatic career. Gritti planned to create a mausoleum to the glory of his family, as Doge Moro had already done in the church of San Giobbe [see pp. 150-153). Leonardo Loredan's heirs had tried to do something similar, applying in vain to the Dominican friars for permission to erect a cenotaph with a canopy at the center of the principal chapel of the basilica of Santi Giovanni e Paolo. The monuments were conceived with a certain austerity and sobriety, using plain Istrian stone throughout the architecture, divided by four semicolumns in Verona marble. A rather striking feature is the complete absence of sculptures of the likeness of the doge or the figures of virtues and saints. The central compartment, above the tall plinth within an aedicula with a broken pediment, contains a gray marble slab with the epitaph. In the side compartments, there are two large coats of arms with the Gritti family's emblems, supported by the heads of lions and tied by elegant ribbons, like the ones on the facade of the church of San Zulian. An urn is placed on top of the architrave of the aedicula, between the sloping sides of the broken tympanum. The doge, his grandfather and other members of the illustrious patrician family are buried in the unmarked tomb on the floor in the center of the principal chapel. No documents have yet been found proving that Jacopo Sansovino was responsible for the twin tombs of the Gritti family. Clues are the architectural elements used, the ornate garlands with fruits and flowers decorating the upper parts of the monuments, the entablatures with impost blocks, the elegant composite capitals, and other elements found on the facades of the Biblioteca Marciana and the Loggetta of the campanile in St. Mark's Square. These lead us to agree with the attribution to the great Florentine architect and sculptor, who also designed the Franciscan church itself.

ANDREA GR.ITT!

215

VILLA DONA DALLE ROSE (MARENO DI PIAVE, TREVISO)

,,

>

F

'-

1

553 · 00 NA F

rancesco Dona belonged to the branch of the Dona family known as "Dona

A

1468

0

MAY 23, 1553

dalle Rose," because they had added three roses to their coat of arms to distin-

guish themselves from other families of the same name. He had a reputation

as a knowledgeable speaker and was highly cultivated. His many notable friendships

included the great humanist Pietro Bembo. Unlike the three doges that preceded him, he had held important civil and administrative rather than military offices. On ll

sculpture

several occasions he was one of the magistrates known as the Savi de/ Consiglio. He dis-

ARTIST UNKNOWN

tinguished himself as podesta of various cities and ambassador to the courts of France,

second half of the 16th century

Portugal, Hungary, and Spain. In 1539, he was made a procurator of St. Mark and on the death of his predecessor Pietro Lando he was elected doge. He was welcomed as an advocate of a period of tranquility and development after years of warfare. Venice remained neutral in the wars between Emperor Charles V and Henry II of France and was able to complete the renewal of the city begun by Andrea Gritti. In the years of the Council of Trent, Dona adopted a prudent middle course between Reformation and Counter-Reformation, despite the pressures from Rome. In Venice, the Tribunal of the Inquisition comprised the inquisitor and other ecclesiastics, but included three laymen, called the Savi all'Eresia. The republic also managed to steer a firm and independent course, for example in relation to the jurisdiction of the bishopric of Ceneda and, in 1550 in the defense of Giovanni Grimani, patriarch of Aquileia, accused of heresy. Although seriously ill since 1550, Dona was not allowed to abdicate. He died in 1553 after making a will in favor of his three nephews and not his son, who lived like a hermit and "wanted no burdens in this world." The doge was buried at his request in the church of the Servi di Maria in Cannaregio, not far from the two palaces, still standing, that the Dona dalle Rose owned in Rio Tera de la Maddalena. Already in 1540, after presenting them with a sizable donation, Francesco Dona received permission from the Servite friars to erect his funerary monument on the left wall of the church, between the family's chapel dedicated to the Madonna dei Sette Dolori and that of the community of the

216

CHURCH OF SAN FRANCESCO DELLA VIGNA

553 > RCANTONIO TREVISAN 1 554· 1

M

arcantonio Trevisan learned diplomacy from his father Domenico by

A

ea. 1475

accompanying him on his embassies to other states. From his mother

0

MAY 31, 1554

ll

architecture

Suordamor Marcello, granddaughter of Doge Nicolo Marcello, he

derived his deeply religious spirit. "Religionis amantissimus" ("a great lover of

religion"), upright, and pious, he never married from a desire to remain chaste. In the conclave, one of the electors, Federico Vallaresso, reproached him as unsuited to the highest office in the state because his character was too innocent. Trevisan agreed with his rival and suggested it would be better not to vote for him, but this

GUGLIELMO DEI GRIGI

produced the opposite effect. In his brief dogeship, in harmony with his convic-

second half of the 16th century

tions, he had balls and performances in the theater banned at night. He made no

ll

sculpture

effort to prolong his life but submitted to divine providence. He died while praying

GIROLAMO CAMPAIGN

in the Sala delle Teste in the Doge's Palace.

second half of the 16th century

Probably inspired by the design of the twin funerary monuments commissioned by Andrea Gritti, Trevisan arranged to be buried in the church of San Francesco della Vigna, in the floor at the center of the transept. He arranged two symmetrical portals to be erected at its extremities, with the intention of dedicating the one on the right-hand wall to the memory of his father Domenico Trevisan, procurator of St. Mark, who died in 1535, and to erect his own monument on the portal leading to the convent. The choice of this design clearly displayed the doge's wish to celebrate the splendors of the ancient Trevisan family. Both finely carved Istrian stone portals have been attributed to Guglielmo dei Grigi. The architectural profiles and decorative elements are gilded. On the portal dedicated to Marcantonio Trevisan, above the plaque with the celebratory inscription, there is a large relief, attributed to Girolamo Campagna, depicting the doge kneeling before Christ crucified. The background to the Crucifixion is Mount Golgotha and some stylized clouds. The doge holds the banner of the Republic of Venice and wears his rich ceremonial robes, whose brocades carved in relief are still

partly gilded. This representation derives from the public Venetian iconography customary since the late fourteenth century, in which the doge was portrayed kneeling before St. Mark, and later before the lion of St. Mark. In this case, the Crucifix replaces the image of the patron saint and his symbol. On the walls at the sides of the portal are inserted two large polychrome coats of arms of the Trevisan family, adorned with rich fluttering ribbons and supported by two gilded lion heads. The tombstone in Istrian stone at the center of the transept recalls that carved by Lombardo for the burial of Doge Moro in the church of San Giobbe [see pp. 150-153), well over seventy years earlier, though the dimensions are larger and the

material used is plainer. The coats of arms of the Trevisan family are carved at the corners of the frieze that frames the slab with the inscription dedicated to the doge at the center. They are adorned with four large bronze studs, unfortunately badly worn with the winged lion of St. Mark depicted frontally.

222

1553) 1554

OSSA MARCI ANT 0NII TRIVISA.NL ~- ' PRI NCI: PIS 4

..

.,.

CHURCH OF SAN SALVADOR

F

F

rancesco Venier was the nephew of Doge Leonardo Loredan on his mother's side. Highly cultivated, he tried in vain several times to gain a procuratorship.

He was elected doge in a fiercely contested conclave after twenty-seven ballots.

He was not old, but he is described as weak and sickly. The sources say he

ll

ll

architecture and sculpture

needed the help of two people to walk. In the two years of his dogeship, a mem-

JACOPO SANSOVINO, ea. r56I

orable event was the lavish reception he gave Bona Sforza, the widow of King

sculpture

Sigismund of Poland. He lived with his brother Pietro.

ALESSANDRO VITTORIA, ea. 156I

In his first will drawn up in 1550, before becoming doge, Francesco Venier arranged to be buried in the church of San Francesco della Vigna, then being rebuilt by Jacopo Sansovino. After becoming doge, he expressed his wish to have his funerary monument placed in the church of San Salvador, rebuilt a few years before to a project by Giorgio Spavento and then completed by Tullio Lombardo. A very ancient foundation, the impressive building stands on the main axis connecting the Rialto to St. Mark's Square. The doge decided to be buried here because of its central position and the splendor of the newly erected church. He also left precise instructions for his burial in the floor of the church, in the tomb built for him and his descendants in front of his funeral monument, not in the marble votive sculpture above the coffin. During the mid-sixteenth century, Jacopo Tani, known as Sansovino, was the star architect of the Republic of Venice. Both a sculptor and an architect, born in Florence, he moved to R ome at an early age with his master, the sculptor Andrea Contucci, called Sansovino, whose name he took. There, he fell under the influence of Michelangelo's sculptures and Raphael's

architecture. He arrived in Venice in 1527, fleeing from the notorious Sack of Rome. This had forced many other artists to escape, so spreading Mannerism across Italy and the other European states. He enjoyed the support of Doge Gritti, whose funerary monument he also designed [see pp. 212-215). Admired by Titian and Aretino, he established himself as the greatest architect and sculptor in the city, where he died in 1570. Doge Venier significantly commissioned his cenotaph from him and it was completed in late 1561. The impressive monument is set on the wall of the second bay of the church, in front of the side portal, respecting the limits dictated by the architectural elements of the building, and resting on a tall plinth preceded by a bench in Verona marble. The monument is tripartite, being articulated by four columns with capitals of the composite order supporting a convex entablature that gives rise to the attic. On this opens out the central arch with a carved lunette, surmounted by a second entablature with a pediment. It differs from the Gritti monument by Sansovino's reuse of numerous ancient polychrome marbles, such as the porphyry decorating the mirrored pattern in the central part of the plinth, the verde antico marble in the slender columns that contain the two side niches and the Greek cipollino marble for the four large columns. The profiles of the architecture, the doge's robes, and the coffin with the epitaph are all gilded. The architectural composition of the Venier monument shows that Sansovino was familiar with certain cenotaphs in Rome in the early sixteenth century. They include the monument to Pope Adrian VI in the church of Santa Maria dell' Anima, designed by Baldassarre Peruzzi in 1.524, and the two identical mirrored monuments to Ascanio Sforza and Girolamo Basso della Rovere on the walls of the chancel of the church of Santa Maria de! Popolo. Andrea Sansovino had devised the last two, and the young Jacopo had probably worked on them ( 1505-1509). For the Venier monument, however, Sansovino reverted to some well-known examples of Venetian memorials conceived and sculpted by Tullio Lombardo, such as the tomb of Doge Giovanni Mocenigo [see pp. 195-199) and, above all, that of Doge Andrea Vendramin. From the latter, he borrowed the tripartite division of the central section behind the reclining figure of the doge [see pp. 178-193). The effigy of the doge and the lunette with the Pieta between St. Francis and the doge kneeling were sculpted by Alessandro Vittoria. To date, no documents confirm that Jacopo Sansovino was responsible for the Venier tomb. Yet considering his role as Proto, principal architect to the Venetian state, it is conceivable that he was in charge of the whole project, not just the sculptures of Hope and Charity, both of which he signed on the front of the base.

FRANCESCO VENIER

CHURCH OF SAN SALVADOR

A

1489

0

AUGUST 17, 1559

T

he brothers Lorenzo and Girolamo Priuli share a magnificent funerary monument erected much later by Girolamo's son Lodovico. In his youth, Lorenzo had studied Latin and Greek, theology, and

philosophy. He held the position of podesta or chief magistrate in various cities ruled by Venice and distinguished himself in the most important legations, including

the embassy to Emperor Charles V in Madrid. He presented the emperor with a "very elegant Latin oration" that earned him a knighthood. He was elected doge in 1556, as with his predecessor after many ballots, twenty-six in all. For his wife Zilia Dandolo, he held a sumptuous coronation, belying the rumors that he was miserly. His brief dogeship passed without wars, but was troubled by an epidemic, a famine, and floods. Girolamo, by contrast, at first preferred trade to politics. He took an active part in public affairs only after he turned forty. He reached the position of procurator shortly after his younger brother Lorenzo was made doge. The influence of the family and the brevity of Lorenzo's reign were among the factors that led to his election in 1559, but only after thirty-five ballots. His eight years at the pinnacle of the republic passed without setbacks, except for raids by Barbary pirates in the Adriatic. In this period, Europe experienced important developments. One was the Treaty of Cateau-Cambresis, which put an end to the wars in Italy and shifted the political center of gravity to the Atlantic. Another was the conclusion of the Council of Trent. The doge proved upright and charitable, assisting the needy, and winning universal goodwill already during his tour of the piazza, proving more generous Il

Il

architecture

than any of his predecessors. He placed the food in his house and much else at the

CESARE FRANCO, early 17th century

disposal of the common people for eight days.

sculpture GIULIO MORO, early 17th century

232

The funerary monument commemorating the two Priuli brothers was erected in the first bay on the left-hand side of the church of San Salvador, to a design by

CHURCH OF SAN SALVADOR

>

Cesare Franco. The two statues in the upper register are signed by Giulio Moro, who

A

1486

also carved the effigies of the doges. As in the Venier monument (see pp. 224--231],

0

NOVEMBER 4, 1567

a bench in red Verona marble extends the whole width of the cenotaph. On the tall plinth rest seven columns in turquoise-red Brentonico marble with composite capitals that are exceptional as being cast in patinated bronze. The columns divide the monument into two sections, each of which houses the tomb chest with the epitaph and supports the black marble sarcophagus. Above the two sarcophagi are depicted the effigies of the Priuli brothers in their robes of office, with brocades painted and gilded in imitation of the famous Venetian fabrics of the time. Once again the geometric decorative tradition derived from Tuscany appears in the three framed slabs behind the reclining figures of the doges, as in Tullio Lombardo's Vendramin monument (see pp. 178-193], Jacopo Sansovino's monument to Francesco Venier (see pp.

224--231] and Danese Cattaneo's monument to Leonardo Loredan [see pp. 207-2II ]. On the bronze capitals rests a rich convex entablature in Brentonico marble. Above this rises the second order articulated vertically by seven columns of the same marble supporting the second entablature culminating in two pediments. The two backdrops are decorated with black marble niches and contain the statues of the doges' patron saints, St. Lawrence and St. Jerome. Recent restoration has revealed that the sculptures of the patron saints, formerly believed to be of bronze, are actually carved in soft Vicenza stone and painted with a black patina to imitate bronze. Construction of the monument was completed by the early seventeenth century. It reflects the austere taste dictated by the Counter-Reformation.

LORENZO PRJULI

I GIROLAMO PRJULI

2 37

BASILICA OF SANTI GIOVANNI E PAOLO

15io> ALVISE I MOCENIGO 1577. A

OCTOBER 26, 1507

0

JUNE 4, 1577

A

lvise Mocenigo belonged to the very wealthy Mocenigo family; he despised commerce and was a patron of artists and writers. In his diplomatic career, he had been ambassador to Charles V. who appreciated

his eloquence and made him a knight, then to Pope Pius IV (1557), and Emperor

Maximilian II ( 1564). A candidate for the dogeship in 1567, he failed to be elected and assigned his votes to the eighty-five-year-old Pietro Loredan, who was elected. Mocenigo succeeded him in 1570. His dogeship was very eventful. In July of the year of his election, the Turks landed in Cyprus; in the following May, Venice formed an alliance with Pope Pius V and Spain. On October 7, 1571, the Christian fleet triumphed at the Battle of Lepanto. It proved impossible to exploit the victory and the subsequent peace treaty ratified the loss of Cyprus. In May 1574, a fire broke out in the Doge's Palace; in July Henry III, who had become king of France, left Poland, where he had been elected king, and stopped over in Venice for eleven days, amid sumptuous festivities, then continued on his way to Paris. In 1575, the plague broke out and in September 1576 the doge, praying for the end of the epidemic, made a vow to erect a church to the Redeemer. This was the church of the Santissimo Redentore, designed by Andrea Palladio.

In 1562, before becoming doge, Alvise Mocenigo had expressed a wish to be Il

Il

architecture

buried in the family tomb in the floor of the basilica of Santi Giovanni e Paolo,

GIOVANNI GRAPIGLIA

close to the funerary monuments of his ancestors, the doges Pietro (see pp. 171-

FRANCESCO CONTIN

177] and Giovanni Mocenigo (see pp. 195-199]. After the election, he asked the

ea. 1581-ca.1651

Dominican fathers for permission to erect his monument against the counter-facade

sculpture

of the basilica, over the main door. Despite the precise schedule laid down by the

GIULIOMORO

doge, the work went ahead very slowly. There was also a long dispute with the heirs

FRANCESCO CAVRIOLI

of the poet Bartolomeo Bragadin, whose funerary monument had been placed on the

ea. 1581-ca. 1651

counter-facade to the right of the portal since 1507. The dispute with the Bragadin

family ended only in 1632, when Mocenigo's heirs signed a notarial deed undertaking to preserve the Bragadin tomb. The imposing monument is built of Istrian stone, divided into two architectural orders, and covers the whole surface of the counter-facade of the nave of the basilica. A late seventeenth-century engraving records that the architect of the monument to Alvise I may have been Giovanni Grapiglia, earlier responsible for completing the work of erecting the tomb of the doge Leonardo Loredan [see pp.

207-2II ], begun by Danese Cattaneo in the same basilica. The sculptural decoration on the lower register is Sansovinian in taste and has been attributed to Giulio Moro. He probably also sculpted the recumbent figures of Doge Alvise I Mocenigo and Dogaressa Loredana Marcello, represented in their robes of office resting on sarcophagi of gray veined marble in the wings at the sides of the upper registe! of the monument. In 1646, the Dominican fathers agreed to the plan to enlarge the

ALVISE I MOCEN!GO

243

BASILICA OF SANTI GIOVANNI E PAOLO

S

ebastiano Venier was energetic, severe, very honest, and courageous, but also choleric and impetuous. In his political career he was made duke of Candia

(governor of Crete) in 1548, podesta of Verona in 1566, then senior magis-

trate and procurator of St. Mark. In 1570, he was a commissary in Corfu. When

A

ea. 1496

0

MARCH 3, 1578

war broke out with the Turks, he showed his courage and resolution by storming a fortress. In December, he was elected Captain General at Sea for his qualities of

•

character, despite his "little experience" of seafaring. He was greatly helped by the heroic Provveditore generale da mar Agostino Barbarigo, who died at Lepanto. Venier fought in person with reckless courage in the battle, although he was seventy-five years old. His character created friction with the general commander of the Christian forces, Don John of Austria and for this reason, after the victory, he asked to be replaced by a person "more prudent and more patient." In 1572, the Senate supported him by naming Giacomo Foscarini Captain General at Sea, with Venier retaining the pre-eminent position. Welcomed triumphantly in Venice, admired by both the electors and the people, he was unanimously elected doge. Even when he held the highest office of state, he retained his curt manner, to the point where, as a chronicler recorded, the Venetians often "longed for the prudence and speech of Prince Mocenigo, his predecessor." He survived the devastating fire that ravaged the Doge's Palace on December 20, 1577, during which he stayed in his apartment. He died in 1578; all the patricians who had fought at Lepanto took part in his funeral procession, being identified by their cloaks. In his will of 1568, made well before being elected to the throne, he chose to be buried in the family tomb in the floor of the chancel of the nuns in the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli on Murano. However, his wishes were disregarded and he was temporarily buried in a tomb that still exists in the floor of the church on Murano, not far from the chancel. This church was very dear to the doge, who had celebrated his wedding there. Then the nun Eugenia Venier, the doge's sister, lived for many years in the adjacent convent, which had a tradition of receiving aristocratic nuns, the daughters of Venetian patricians. Unfortunately none of his descendants troubled to erect a

O

sculpture ANTONIO DAL ZOTTO, 1907

funerary monument to the hero of Lepanto and his temporary burial place became permanent. The church and convent of Santa Maria degli Angeli were suppressed in the period of French rule. The artworks preserved there were moved in part to the nearby church of San Pietro Martire, while others were sold and dispersed. The convent was later demolished. Finally, in the late nineteenth century, Pompeo Molrnenti and Count Giovanni Battista Venier, a descendant of the doge, set up a committee to worthily celebrate the memory of Sebastiano Venier in the pantheon of the doges of the Serenissima, the basilica of Santi Giovanni e Paolo. Following the suppressions and demolitions of numerous religious houses and monasteries under French and Austrian rule, some important funerary monuments were fortunately saved from the sorrowful events of the early nineteenth century. The Dominican basilica, which already contained many tombs of the doges, was used to preserve and erect some important sculptures and memorials of Venetian history. They included the effigy of Doge Steno [see pp. 122-125] and the monument to Doge Nicolo Marcello [see pp. 162-169], brought from the demolished church of Santa Marina, and the monument to Doge Vendramin [see pp. 178-193), formerly in the church of the Servi di Maria, which no longer exists. In 1907, the committee chaired by Molmenti commissioned a bronze sculpture from Antonio Dal Zotto. He had cast the bronze monument to Carlo Goldoni in Campo San Bartolomeo, near the Rialto bridge, in 1883. Dal Zotto taught for many years at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Venice and was a leading figure Venetian artist in the late nineteenth century. The sculpture depicts the doge standing holding his sword in one hand and in the other his staff as Captain General at Sea. He wears a suit of armor bearing the arms of the Venier family on the cuirass. The doge's mortal remains were moved from the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli and placed in the tomb before the bronze sculpture.

246

MUSEO DEL SEMINARIO PATRIARCALE DI VENEZIA /

A

JANUARY 15, 1491

0

JULY 30, 1585

A

fine scholar, Nicolo da Ponte had been a pupil of the humanist Battista Egnazio. He attended lectures on philosophy in Padua and in 1514 obtained a doctorate in medicine in Venice. He began his political career

as early as 1512. While still quite young, he became one of the Savi agli Ordini (mag-

istrates who oversaw Venetian sea power, trade and colonies). Then for twenty years he devoted himself to trade with great success, avoiding public commitments. In 1.521, however, he agreed to hold the chair of philosophy at the Scuola di Rialto. In 1532, he returned to public life, was captain in Corfu, lieutenant general in Friuli, and the Riformatore de/lo Studio de Padova ( chief of the university). A convinced opponent of the Church's interference in state affairs, he defended the bishop of Bergamo, Vettor Soranzo, against the charge of protecting heretics and opposed the introduction of the Index of Forbidden Books into Venetian territory. He distinguished himself in embassies to Francis II, Charles V and Popes Paul III, Julius III and Gregory XIII, who after listening to his arguments for the Venetians' separate peace with the Turks, called him "pacis angelus" ("angel of peace"). But Pius V refused to receive him as ambassador because of his attitude at the Council of Trent many years earlier, and how effectively he had defended the bishop of Bergamo, when Antonio Ghisleri, who later became pope, charged him with heresy. In foreign policy, the doge adopted a policy of neutrality, preferring to preserve commercial relations with the Turks rather than accept proposed alliances with the Russians and Persians. In his last years, old and tired, he tended to fall asleep during councils. When he died he was over ninety years old. In 1582, Doge Nicolo da Ponte commissioned the procurator Marc'Antonio Barbaro to erect his funerary monument in the church of Santa Maria della Carita. The church was suppressed in 1807 during the second period of French rule. Then, 11

248

bust

with the adjacent Scuola Grande della Carita, it was converted into the premises of

ALESSANDRO VITTORIA, 1585

the Accademia di Belle Arti, on the model of the Musee du Louvre in Paris. The

"

opposite page DIONISIO VALES!, Mausoleum of Doge Nicolo Da Ponte, mid-r8th century Museo Correr, Venice

..

. ....

,.---

- ,.. _

•

I

•

Jl![AUSOLEO DEL FU-SERENISS:°DDGE NICOLDDA PONTE MORTO NEL MDLXXXV ERETTO NELLA CHIESA DI SMARIA DELLA CARITA' nE' C".AN0N1c1 REG OLARI ;

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UMILIATD ALL' Ecc::uFAMIGLIA

DAPONTE

VENETA . J) icm ,

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e,ri inr,

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NICOLO DAPONTE

CHURCH OF THE GESUITI (SANTA MARIA ASSUNTA)

PAS C

icogna had a brilliant public career, as governor of Treviso, Friuli, and Padua. Particularly important were the seven years he spent in Candia (Crete), where he held the highest offices, respected by soldiers and the

people. Out of gratitude, they erected an equestrian statue to him.

A

MAY 27, 1509

0

APRIL 2, 1595

ll

architecture

The chronicles describe him as upright, high-minded, and very religious. He received the news of his appointment, to which he never aspired, while at prayer in the church of the Crociferi. On entering the Doge's Palace, "he uttered fifty words very clearly saying that God would slay him if he were not of service to the republic." His marked piety was no obstacle to the success of the currents of the "young" senators, who advocated a policy of independence from the Roman Church. His was a peaceful decade, troubled only by incursions of the Croatian Uskoks in the Adriatic. It was spent raising important civil, military, and religious buildings, including the stone bridge of the Rialto, the church of the Redentore in Venice, and the fortress of Palmanova in northern Italy. In his first instructions for his burial, Pasquale Cicogna had expressed the wish

to be laid in the family tomb in the church of San Francesco della Vigna, but in 1594, a year before his death, he wrote his last will and testament. In it, he required his executors, including his grandson Pasquale, to erect a funerary monument in the church of the Crociferi, where ten years earlier he had learned of his election to the throne. The monument was on the right-hand wall of the ancient church, which was founded in the twelfth century and rebuilt in its present form only in 1715. The order of the Jesuits was readmitted to the territories of the Serenissima in 1657 and replaced that of the Crociferi, suppressed by Pope Alexander VII. The pope donated the goods belonging to the Crociferi to the Republic of Venice, which sold

VINCENZO SCAMOZZI

them to the Jesuits soon after. The new church, dedicated to Santa Maria Assunta (but commonly called the church of the Gesuiti), was one of the city's most magnificent buildings, erected

early 17th century ll

sculpture

thanks to lavish donations from the wealthy Manin family, whose arms appear on

GIROLAMO CAMPAGNA

the facade. It was consecrated in 1728.

early 17th century

2 53

Masterpieces like the famous painting by Titian of the Martyrdom of Saint

Lawrence, and other imposing funerary monuments, such as the Lezze family tomb, survived the demolition of the old building. The sepulchre of Doge Cicogna was set above and at both sides of the door connecting the church to the convent. Once its original location was demolished, it was recomposed in the chapel to the left of the main one, surrounding the door that communicates with the sacristy, without making any changes to the original design. The composition of the monument recalls that of the Gritti tombs in San Francesco della Vigna by Jacopo Sansovino (see pp. 212-215]. Above a tall plinth in Istrian stone, divided by the door leading to the sacristy, rise four columns in gray-veined marble from Friulian quarries surmounted by composite capitals, marking the tripartite division of the monument. In the central intercolurnn, above the door is the tomb chest in gilded stone with the epitaph. On it rests an elegant sarcophagus in gray marble with the effigy of the doge portrayed in his robes of office. The garments are carved and gilded in imitation of the precious Venetian brocades of the sixteenth century. The doge is represented informally as reclining on his side with one elbow resting on the cushions and his hand bent to support his head. Here, for the first time the gisant of a doge is depicted as sleeping and not dead. Between the capitals of the central compartment two sculpted elements imitate a baldachin. The side compartments are decorated with gilded panels with

mottos carved in Latin, within the middle reliefs with trophies of weapons and, amid the arms and armor, also shields bearing the insignia of Doge Cicogna. The pediment rises above the entablature in Istrian stone with gray marble impost blocks. To date, no document has emerged to show who was responsible for the monument. However, the similarity of the doge's effigy to that in the cenotaph of his successor, Doge Marino Grimani [see pp. 257-263], and the architectural treatment suggest a possible collaboration between the architect Vincenzo Scamozzi and the sculptor Girolamo Campagna, who worked on the tombs of Marino Grimani and Nicolo da Ponte [see pp. 248-251 ], the latter being Cicogna's predecessor.

PASQ!JALE CICOGNA

CHURCH OF SAN GIUSEPPE DI CASTELLO

1 595 > I

T

he son of Girolamo Grimani, who commissioned the family's palace on Rio

A

JUNE

di San Luca, Marino Grimani turned to politics after his father's death,

0

DECEMBER 25, 1605

JJ

architecture

l,

1532

becomingpodesta of Brescia in 1571. He held important positions in the

central government, was captain of Padua in 1587, and was sent on special embassies

to various popes. He was a member of the party of the old patricians (i vecchi), supporters of the alliance with Spain and the papacy, and he had close ties to the Jesuits. He was elected after a lengthy and strongly contested conclave. He performed splendidly in the procession through the piazza and the subsequent festivities; he was equally generous two years later on the coronation of his wife, the Dogaressa Morosina Morosini [see p. 46). For these reasons, he was always very popular. The Grimani family, from the time of Antonio, doge from 1521 to 1523, had kept up close relations with the Papal States. Cardinal Domenico Grimani, patriarch of Aquileia and son of Doge Antonio, built a palace in Rome, in what is now Piazza Barberini; it bore the Grimani name until the mid-seventeenth century. His nephew Giovanni, also patriarch of Aquileia, accumulated an extraordinary collection of ancient sculptures and decorated his home in the parish of Santa Maria Formosa in the "Roman style." Girolamo, the founder of the branch of the Grimani di San Luca, remained true to the family's traditional pro-papal policies, although most Venetian patricians favored independence from Rome and its politics. He was ambassador of the Serenissirna in Paris and Rome, and in 1556 commissioned Michele Sanmicheli to erect his over-large palazzo on the Grand Canal. He failed to become doge by only a handful of votes, but his son Marino was elected. The entrance hall to the

VINCENZO SCAMOZZI

palace-with a nave and side aisles, barrel vaults and columns-recalls that com-

FRANCESCO SMERALDI

missioned by Pope Paul III Farnese for the building in Rome (now the French

early 17th century

embassy) designed by Antonio da Sangallo the Elder. Marino followed the family's policy and his cenotaph was inspired by the papal funerary monuments built in those years in Rome. He chose the church of

JJ

sculpture GIROLAMO CAMPAGNA early 17th century

San Giuseppe in the Castello quarter to perpetuate his memory and that of the Dogaressa Morosina Morosini. The church is rather peripheral, but close to the seat of the ancient Apostolic Nunciature (Palazzo Gritti in San Francesco) and the basilica of San Pietro di Castello, the seat of the patriarchate of Venice until the fall of the Serenissima. Doge Antonio Grimani was buried in the church of Sant' Antonio, demolished in the early nineteenth century, located in the area currently occupied by the Giardini (now the Biennale). The church of San Francesco della Vigna in the same part of Venice has a Grimani chapel, decorated by TuscanRoman artists, commissioned by Giovanni Grimani, who financed the construction of its Palladian facade. For the execution of his cenotaph, Marino Grimani chose the architect Vincenzo Scamozzi, the heir of Palladio, and the sculptor Girolamo Campagna. They had worked on the funerary monuments of his two predecessors, the Doges Nicolo da Ponte and Pasquale Cicogna, who commissioned their tombs while still alive. The construction of the church of San Giuseppe was completed in 1563 thanks to a substantial donation from Girolamo Grimani, the doge's father. Collaborating on the project with Scamozzi and Girolamo Campagna were Sante Peranda and Francesco Smeraldi, who at the time was engaged in the completion of the basilica of San Pietro di Castello. The cenotaph frames the side door of the church, a solution used a few years earlier for the Cicogna monument (see pp. 253-255]. A tall plinth in Istrian stone supports four pillars. On the two central ones are depicted two rampant winged lions, each supporting a cross and surmounted by a scroll on which is carved the doge's personal emblem, while the two sides have carvings in relief of personifications of Padua, at left, and Brescia, at right, cities governed by the doge. The pillars support four columns in veined marble with composite capitals bearing a pulvinated ( convex) entablature.

In the intercolumns at the sides, four caryatids support the sarcophagi of the doge and dogaressa and flank two bronze panels in high relief. The one beneath Marino Grimani's sarcophagus depicts his coronation in St. Mark's basilica before Jesus Christ, and that of the Dogaressa Morosina, likewise inside St. Mark's, before the Pala d'Oro. Once again, the political position of the Grimani family is underscored by the presence of the apostolic nuncio at the ceremony. The elegant sarcophagi in veined Carrara marble are supported by lion's feet and decorated on the front with winged cherubs in bronze. Reclining OJ} them are the effigies of the doge and dogaressa depicted in their robes of state. For the first time in the history of dogal monuments, the eyes of the figures, no longer represented as dead or sleeping, are turned toward the bystanders. The grounds of the niches housing the effigies and sarcophagi are decorated with gilded mosaics and

1595 > 1605

putti, a further allusion to St. Mark's and the ancient Venetian mosaic tradition. Above the portal and its broken curved pediment is placed the gilded plaque with the epitaph. The attic level is divided by four sculptures of virtues with, at the center, a large relief representing the doge and dogaressa kneeling before the Virgin enthroned with the Christ Child, while putti bearing laurel wreaths hover abov;, them. The official robes of the effigies are partly gilded and imitate the patterns of precious sixteenth-century brocades. In the side compartments of the attic are carved two large polychrome coats of arms: those of the Grimani family above the doge and the Grimani arms united with the Morosini above the dogaressa. The second entablature has a central pediment surmounted by three virtues, while at the sides two torches conclude the monument. The attic, larger than those present in the other Venetian monuments of the sixteenth century, recalls Andrea Palladio's design for the proscenium of the Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza, a building completed by Vincenzo Scamozzi after Palladio's death in 1580. Finally, a wooden lion's paw supports a gilded metal orb ( the ducal pomolo ), surmounted by the figure of St. Mark and his banner, placed inside the tympanum in keeping with the doge's instructions in his will. The monument was completed before his death.

1595 > 1605

BASILICA OF SAN GIORGIO MAGGIORE

1606> LEONARDO

A

FEBRUARY 12, 1536

0

JULY 16, 1612

I

/

n his youth, Leonardo Dona studied in Padua and Bologna, but without taking a degree. His love of scholarship and literature lasted a lifetime, as shown by the inventory that he made of his library. His profound learning and an unusual gift

for eloquence formed the cornerstones of his political career. He was chosen for delicate embassies, in which he vigorously supported the Venetian positions. He was highly appreciated by such challenging figures as Philip II of Spain, "bold, impulsive, awe-inspiring" Pope Sixtus V, Pope Clement VIII, and Sultan Mehmed III. Leonardo Dona was the most prominent member of the faction of so-called "young" patricians, eager for a policy free from the influence of Spain and critical of the interference of the apostolic see, at a time when the Counter-Reformation was reaching its height. At his side were Nicolo Contarini, the future doge, and Paolo Sarpi, a very gifted Servite friar, jurist, and scientist, acting as legal consultant. In this context, Dona was elected doge in 1606, when relations with Roman curia, ruled by the intransigent Pope Paul V, were most deeply strained. When the republic ordered the arrest of two ecclesiastical delinquents, the pope demanded their surrender to Rome. Venice refused, and Paul V excommunicated the Senate and laid the city under the interdict, prohibiting the celebration of all religious rites in the Venetian dominions. The state ordered that it should be ignored and the clergy obeyed, except for the Jesuit, Capuchin, and Theatine orders, which were expelled. Venice presented its justification in the Protesto, which circulated throughout Europe. The dispute ended in 1607, following French mediation. Dona played an active part on numerous committees formed to carry out important public projects. They included the new Rialto bridge, the church of the Redentore, and the completion of work on the new Palladian fabric of the

ll

architecture and sculpture

Benedictine basilica of San Giorgio Maggiore on the island of that same name. In

UNKNOWN, first half of 17th century

his will, drawn up two months before his death on July 16, 1612, he gave precise

LEONARD[ DONATO YENETIARVM PRINCIPIS OSSA·EIVS IVSSV HIC CONDITA SVNT·Q._VI 1 TOTIVS ITA CVRS\/ SYMMA SEMPER INTEG R ITATE CONTlNYISOVE LABORIBVS TRAN SACT)£ NIHIL CAR IVS VNQY'AMHABVIT QYAM PATRik. LIBERTATEM REIQYE PVBLIC1t..

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1606 ) 1612

instructions for the construction of his tomb. Unlike his predecessor Marino Grimani, he decided to perpetuate his memory by raising a deliberately austere monument, without pomp and without religious symbols. The burial place of the Dona dalle Rose family was in the chapel of the Madonna dei Sette Dolori in the church, now destroyed, of the Servi in Cannaregio, where Doge Francesco was also buried [see pp. 216-217]. The plaque at the center of the facade of the basilica of San Giorgio Maggiore testifies to the completion of the work under Doge Leonardo Dona, who made arrangements with the Benedictine monks to be buried inside the church, on the counter-facade, in correspondence with the plaque above the portal on the exterior. The monument rises above the first pulvinated ( convex) entablature of the counter-facade and is embedded between it and the upper entablature of the giant order of the basilica. The composition of the monument is tripartite and repeats some elements used by Vincenzo Scamozzi in the cenotaph of Doge Nicolo da Ponte [see. pp. 248-251 ], such as the marble sarcophagus surmounted by the bust of the doge in classical style. It is subdivided by four gray marble columns with Doric capitals and an Istrian stone architrave, decorated with metopes and triglyphs. This only surmounts the intercolumns at the sides, on which rest the polychrome and gilded arms of the Dona family, surmounted by the doge's corno and supported by a lion's head. Trophies of weapons, though hardly representative of the personality of the doge, are carved under the coats of arms. In the niche of the central compartment, faced with red Verona marble, is the tomb chest, engraved with an epitaph that differs from the text the doge had composed in his will. The bust is a modest piece of work and is disproportionately large compared to the size of the sarcophagus supporting it. The monument was erected by the doge's heirs after his death.

LEONARDO DONA

BASILICA OF SAN GIORGIO MAGGIORE

1612 >

MARCANTONIO S

ince the death of Michele Morosini, doge in 1382, no member of the "old"

families-which had dominated political life before the fourteenth cen-

A

NOVEMBER

tury-had ascended the ducal throne. The "new" families, which had become

0

OCTOBER 31, 1615

O

architecture

II,

1536

established later, manipulated the elections to monopolize the ducal office for more than

200

years. Now, however, with the election of an elderly procurator of St.

Mark, Marcantonio Memmo, from an "old" famil y, the distinction finally lost its importance. The newly elected doge enjoyed a reputation as a good administrator, earned as governor of various cities under Venetian rule. Unfortunately it immediately appeared that his health was poor, since he was compelled to put off his procession through the piazza in the pozzetto. His short period of government was troubled by a growth in Uskok raids in the Adriatic. Their persistence and, above all, the violent pillaging of the galley of Cristoforo Venier, barbarously put to death, led the republic to declare war on the archduke of Austria, who invariably supported the pirates. Doge Marcantonio Memmo also had his funerary monument erected during his dogeship. He placed it on the counter-facade of the basilica of San Giorgio Maggiore to the left of the portal, where, placed higher up, is the cenotaph of Doge Leonardo Dona, his predecessor [see pp. 264-267 J. The monument rests on a tall tripartite plinth in Istrian stone, on which rises the base in veined Carrara marble, decorated with inserts of small slabs of variegated gray marble below the columns. The epitaph is carved at the center. The central intercolumn is wider than those at the sides and flanked with two columns in Greek Cipollino marble, probably ancient, which form the aedicula surmounted by apediment. The sarcophagus is in veined gray marble and supports the bust of the doge, sculpted by Giulio Moro, which is outsized compared to the proportions of the archi-

ARCHITECT UNKNOWN, 16r8

tecture. The ground of the central compartment is decorated with gilded mosaic tiles and creates an interesting contrast with the marble portrait. The side compartments of the monument are bounded by gray marble columns with composite capitals, on

O

sculpture GIULIO MORO, 16r8

272

-..

.

which rests the entablature with gray marble impost blocks. The niches of the intercolumns at the sides are decorated with slabs of black-veined marble. They contain two corbels carved with cherubs, similar to those designed by Danese Cattaneo for the monument to Doge Loredan [see pp.

2cY7-2I r ].

These support two Carrara

marble sculptures of Faith, at left, and Charity, at right. Above the entablature is the attic, divided by four statues depicting the cardinal virtues and adorned with panels of black-veined marble. On the sloping sides of the pediment two allegorical female figures flank the polychrome coat of arms of the Memmo family, surmounted by the ducal corno, set within a frame decorated with gilded scrolls. The architect of this monument, completed only in r6r8, is unknown. The cenotaph repeats some elements and devices already used by Jacopo Sansovino, Danese Cattaneo, and Vincenzo Scamozzi on doges' tombs erected during the sixteenth century.

MARCANTONIO MEMMO

2 73

CHURCH OF SAN FRANCESCO DELLA VIGNA

A

OCTOBER 7, 1554

0

DECEMBER 6, 1624

T

he Doges Francesco and Alvise belonged to one of the many branches of the Contarini family, which ever since the early fifteenth century had lived in the Palazzo della Porta di Ferro on Rio di San Francesco della Vigna.

Francesco devoted himself to philosophical and literary studies as well as

gaining experience of the world on his many travels, so that it was said that he had "worn himself out in his studies and wanderings through the world." During his career, he was ten times ordinary or extraordinary ambassador to the most important courts of Italy and the rest of Europe, as well as occupying the highest offices of state. A Spanish diplomat, the Marquis ofBedmar, notorious for plotting the downfall of Venice, described him as "one of the republic's best subjects [... ],caring more for the public good than his own (... ]. He does not aspire to a higher rank than the one he possesses, although among the number of the procurators there is not one who is his equal." Elected in 1623, after no fewer than seventy-nine ballots and three appeals by the Signory to the electors, he lacked time to prove his worth during little more than a year in office. During this period, Venice, together with France and Savoy, continued to be pitted against Spain in the War of Valtellina. The election of Alvise Contarini came about in a singular way. The forty-one voters had already chosen another eminent patrician, Giovanni Sagredo, but his opponents staged demonstrations in the piazza that were so riotous that they l'l

l'l

l'l

architecture

prompted the Great Council to appoint a different set of forty-one electors (a case

SCHOOL OF BALDASSARE LONGHENA

unique in Venice's history). Initially favorable to Alvise Priuli, they finally settled

1659

on Contarini, judging Priuli's health to be too precarious. This episode gave rise to

pictorial decoration

the saying, "Un Priuli dose detto, un Contarini dose fatto, un Sagredo dose desfatto"

FRANCESCO ZANCHI, 1744

("Priuli called the doge, Contarini made the doge, Sagredo unmade the doge").

bust of Francesco Contarini SCULPTOR UNKNOWN, 1663

2 74

Alvise had spent most of his life abroad. He was appointed ambassador to Holland in 1631 , to the France of Cardinal Richelieu in 1633, to the Spain of Count

CHURCH OF SAN FRANCESCO DELLA VIGNA

•

Olivares in 1637, and finally to Rome in 1645 and 1655. His dogeship was peaceful,

A

OCTOBER 24, 1601

until the Turks declared war against the empire and advanced as far as the gates of

0

JANUARY 15, 1684

0

bust of Alvise Contarini

Vienna in 1683. The question then arose of the policy to be adopted: whether to stay neutral or join the Christian league sponsored by the pope. Venice chose the alliance with the pope on March 5, 1684, but Doge Contarini had already died on January 15. Erection of the family tomb began in 1536, when one Zuanne Contarini purchased the third chapel on the right-hand side of the church of San Francesco della Vigna, being rebuilt in those years. In 1624, Jacopo Palma il Giovane painted the altarpiece depicting the Virgin in Glory with Saints and in the same year, Doge Francesco was buried in the family tomb in the floor at the center of the chapel. In 1659, Doge Francesco's nephews, Giovanni and Alvise Contarini (who was elected

doge a few years later), decided to renew the decoration of the family chapel dedicated to St. Francis of Assisi with an elegant architectural project in Baroque style, close to the manner of Baldassare Longhena, though the architect is unknown. The three walls of the chapel are richly decorated with marble panels, with cornice moldings inset with slabs of chalcedony and polychrome marble. The geometric motifs of the marble decoration are repeated all the way to the entablature set below the semicircular Sansovinian window, giving a form to the architrave of the altar, surmounted by an arched tympanum, on which rest two figures representing Virtues and a putto at the center. The entablature continues on the side walls. The sources mention that in 1663 the marble bust of Doge Francesco, portrayed wearing the ermine mantle and ducal como, was placed on the right-hand wall of the chapel, while on the left there was a plaque with an inscription bearing the names of the donors, surmounted by the arms of the Contarini family. We do not know the name of the sculptor of this portrait of the doge. It was inspired by official portraits sculpted in Venice in the late sixteenth century, but which went out of

SCULPTOR UNKNOWN, 1744

2 75

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Contarini, a descendant vise and commissioned a cl.father in Carrara marble. uro, a light white cap worn

ced on the right-hand w, n was moved to the opposite tor was clearly inspired by om the second half of the that of Doge Nicolo Sagredo e opposite side of the same . On this occasion, the two laques were carved with the egant marble cornices framthe heads of winged cherubs by a cornice molding on porting the busts of the arrel vault of the chapel was

l' oeil frescoes by Francesco al coffering with traces of issioned by Alvise Contarini Nicolo in 1761. The date ow the bust of Doge Alvise.

CHURCH OF SAN MARTINO DI CASTELLO ST. MARK'S BASILICA /

I A

FEBRUARY 28, 1566

0

JANUARY 3, 1646

T

he terrible plague that had broken out in 1630 was still raging and, partly because of this, the voters agreed at the first ballot on the name of Francesco Erizzo, Provveditoregenerale in campo (Commander-in-chief) during the war

with the Habsburgs, based in Vicenza. For fear of contagion, the celebrations and the procession through the piazza were avoided. Prior to this, Erizzo had once held the position of Provveditore generale da mar and

four times that of Provveditore generale in campo. He played an active part in the prinJl

architecture

cipal conflicts of his time, from the war in Friuli against the archdukes of Austria to

MATTEOSCARAMUZZA

the Valtellina War.

second quarter of the 17th century Jl

In the first years of his reign, after the epidemic that killed more than a quarter

sculpture

of the population, he followed a political line of non-belligerence. This was aban-

MATTIA CARNER!

doned in 1642 when the republic came to the aid of Odoardo, duke of Parma, in the

second quarter of the 17th century

war over the Duchy of Castro. Much more serious and troubled was the outbreak of the long and extenuating War of Candia. It was sparked by the Turks' charge that the republic was colluding with the Knights of Malta, who had taken refuge on Crete, a Venetian possession, after attacking a peaceful Turkish convoy headed for Mecca. Initial defeats prompted the Signoria to give Erizzo supreme command of the fleet, but he died soon after. From 1615 to 1635, no monuments were erected. The six doges that preceded Francesco Erizzo were simply buried in their family tombs. The doge decided to erect his cenotaph in his own lifetime in the church of San Martino di Castello. In his will made in 1634, he gave a precise description of the intended place, on the right wall of the transept, above the door in the side facade facing the Erizzo family's palazzo, where he was born. The will mentions the architect Matteo Scaramuzza, while the sculptures were executed by

Mattia Carneri, a sculptor and architect from Trentino. He probably also renewed Doge Erizzo's nearby palace and worked for the Dominicans in the basilica of Santi Giovanni e Paolo. The architectural composition of the tomb recalls Danese Cattaneo's design of the monument to Doge Leonardo Loredan in the basilica of Santi Giovanni e Paolo [see pp. 207- 2II ], together with some variations already ,, presented by Vincenzo Scamozzi in the tombs of the Doges Pasquale Cicogna in the church of the Gesuiti [see pp. 253-255] and Marino Grimani in the church of San Giuseppe [see pp.

257-263]. The monument occupies the whole surface of the wall, above the door and at its sides, until it reaches the lunette with the Sansovinian window. Set on a high Istrian stone plinth, the base is decorated with slabs of variegated marble. From this rise four columns with capitals of a composite order dividing the monument into three compartments and supporting the pulvinated entablature. This is recessed within the central intercolumn and then projects again, and rises at the center to create the pediment. The central compartment is wider and deeper than the ones at the sides. The sarcophagus rests on the architrave of the door, with some marble steps supporting the figure of the doge enthroned (like the statue of Doge Leonardo Loredan sculpted by Girolamo Campagna

Urn Containing the•Heart of Doge Erizzo,

[see pp. 207-21 r ]). He is represented wearing his ceremonial robes and addressing

St. Mark's Basilica, Venice

the bystanders. The doge's features are elegant and haughty, as in the portrait painted by Bernardo Strozzi, now in the Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice [seep. 36]. On the front of the sarcophagus is set a chalcedony plaque with the epitaph engraved in gilded letters. The compartment containing the likeness of the doge is divided by four small pillars that frame two slabs of variegated marble at the sides, while the central panel is decorated with a gilded canopy and mosaic tiles. Between the columns at the sides are set trophies of arms carved in relief, with the arms of the Erizzo family at the center surmounted by the ducal corno. The reliefs in the right-hand intercolurnn allude to his position as Captain General at Sea, while the trophies of arms with the general's batons on the left evoke his campaign in the territory ofMantua. Two allegorical figures in stucco recline on the sloping sides of the pediment with at the apex a putto in white stucco supporting the doge's corno and a ribbon. The attic behind them follows the tripartite structure imposed by the supporting columns and is divided by four pillars decorated with slabs of variegated marble. At the sides two reliefs depict classical armor and various weapons. Above the dentillated architrave rise two candelabra and two orbs symbolizing the attributes of military power. The doge's body is laid in the tomb at the center of the church, under a slab of black marble surrounded by a band of yellow marble of Siena. But the doge's heart, as requested in his last will, was buried in the floor of the principal chapel of St. Mark's basilica, his patron saint, at the side of the ciborium. It rests beneath a small slab of white marble decorated with a heart in red Verona

marble inlaid with the ducal corno in white marble and with the black marble profile of a hedgehog, a symbol that evokes the family's name (rizzo in Venetian dialect).

FRANCESCO ERlZZO

CHURCH OF SAN VIDAL

1655 >

CARLO 1656· CONTARINI B

orn into the San Felice branch of the wealthy and prestigious Contarini fam-

A

JULY 5, l 580

n

MAY 1, 1656

ily, Carlo Contarini was an only son. He lost his father just ten days after he was born.

In 1598, he was a member of the extraordinary embassy sent to Pope Clement

VIII, who was planning to take control of Ferrara after the death of Duke Alfonso II of Este. The following year he went to Milan with Angelo Ba doer to honor Albert VII of Habsburg and his wife, the rulers of the Spanish Netherlands. He distinguished himself as rector of Feltre, where he took measures to help the poorest classes. He was podesta in Verona, where he vigorously opposed smuggling and banditry, then in Istria and captain in Brescia. All through his political career, he acted with resolution in important offices in the central government, then withdrew to private life in his later years. Following the death of Doge Francesco Molin, as Contarini was residing in his villa in the Padua area, he learned that he had been made doge by the electors. Their previous failure to elect a candidate had led to their being admonished twice. His brief reign lasted only thirteen months, while the Turkish siege of Candia continued. He is remembered for the audiences he granted to the poor and widows, as well as the splendor of his garments, and the profusion of luxury with which he loved to decorate his suite in the Doge's Palace. In 1634, the doge had a floor tomb built for himself and his descendants in

a chapel of the church of San Bonaventura, attached to a monastery of reformed Minorite friars close by the church of Sant' Alvise in Cannaregio.

n

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architecture

ANDREA TIRALI

Bonaventura was deconsecrated and completely stripped of all its historical-artistic

early 18th century

remains, including the Contarini family tomb. After several changes of ownership,

bust

the buildings were incorporated into the Umberto I Pediatric Hospital.

GIUSEPPE GNOCCOLA early 18th century

288

Following the Napoleonic suppression of the churches, the complex of San

The procurator of St. Mark, Andrea Contarini, the doge's son, assigned the substantial sum of ro,ooo ducats for the erection of a cenotaph to his parents in the

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CAR.LO CONTARINI

BASILICA OF SANTA MARIA GLORIOSA DEi FRARI

G

iovanni Pesaro's family was very wealthy, possessing three palaces in

A

SEPTEMBER 1, 1589

Venice; but their reputation was compromised by his brother Leonardo,

0

SEPTEMBER 30, 1659

O

architecture

guilty of crimes which led to his banishment and expulsion from the

Libro d'Oro, a directory of the patriciate. Giovanni Pesaro was also tried for his behavior during the Wars of Castro, when he allowed his soldiers to go marauding and pillaging, and for abandoning the defense of Pontelagoscuro attacked by the papal army. Pesaro was opposed to the power of the Inquisition, but during the Cretan Wars, considering the needs of the republic, he changed his policy and worked for a rapprochement with the papacy. This led in 1657 to the readmission of the Jesuits,

expelled in 1606 during the papal interdict, and gained Venice the support of Rome. He was ambassador to France and Rome and held a number of prominent offices in government, being elected one of the savi twenty-four times. He was described as the man who "more than any other controls the machinery of this republic." He won the favor of his colleagues and was elected doge with a speech firmly opposed to peace with the Turks, declaring, "It will be said of us that we have lost the kingdom [of Candia] and our royal spirit with it." The basilica of the Frari was for many centuries the favored burial place for members of this wealthy and illustrious family. As early as the mid-fifteenth cen-

BALDASSARE LONGHENA

tury, its San Beneto branch, who lived in Palazzo Pesaro, later called degli Orfei

1665-1669

(now the premises of the Museo Fortuny), had applied to the Franciscans to be

a

sculpture

allowed to occupy part of the sacristy with a floor tomb for Franceschina Tron, the

GIUSTO LE COURT

wife of Pietro Pesaro and mother of the brothers Benedetto, Nicolo, and Marco.

MELCHIOR BARTHEL

And in 1478, they commissioned Giovanni Bellini to paint the famous triptych

FRANCESCO CAVRIOLI

depicting the Virgin and Child with Saints, completed only in 1488.

MICHELE FABRIS

Benedetto was appointed Captain General at Sea and, after various military successes, died in Corfu in 1503. As instructed in his testament, he was buried in the

BERNARDO FALCONI 1665-1669

basilica of the Frari, where his son Girolamo raised the splendid monument surrounding the doorway leading from the transept into the sacristy, probably the work of Giambattista Bregno, dating from about 1510. Nine years later, Bishop Jacopo Pesaro, Benedetto's cousin, from the branch of the family called the Pesaro dal Carro, residing in the parish of San Stae, commissioned Titian to paint the altarpiece depict,, ing the Pesaro family presented to the Virgin by St. Peter. The marble altar with the Pesaro altarpiece, representing the two shield-bearers with the Pesaro coat of arms, is the work of the brothers Giambattista and Lorenzo Bregno. The ambitious bishop had his wall-mounted funerary monument built while he was still alive, to the right of the Pesaro altarpiece. It portrays him kneeling at left, while the young man on the right who follows the viewer with his gaze, was the grandfather of Doge Giovanni Pesaro, whose funerary monument surrounds the side door of the left-hand aisle of the basilica. This imposing theatrical machine, conceived as a veritable facade, was commissioned by the doge himself before his death in 1659. It was only in 1665 that his nephew Leonardo Pesaro received permission from the Franciscans to erect the sumptuous cenotaph, decorated with polychrome marbles and bronzes. It is on record that many of the marble parts that make up the monument had already been sculpted well before obtaining the friars ' permission, and in just four years the monument was completed. The doge commissioned Baldassare Longhena, the greatest seventeenth-century architect in Venice, to design his new palace between the Rio della Pergola and Rio delle Due Torri in San Stae, and to erect his funerary monument in the basilica of the Frari. Longhena employed a whole team of sculptors, such as Giusto Le Court, Melchior Barthel, Francesco Cavrioli, Michele Fabris, and Bernardo Falconi. He had worked with them on the sculptural decorations of the basilica of Santa Maria della Salute, and on many other buildings and altars that he designed in the city and possessions of the Serenissima. Baldassare Longhena was inspired by the monument to Doge Francesco Erizzo in San Martino di Castello [see pp. 282-287], representing the doge enthroned in the act of conversing above the door. The Pesaro monument is also tripartite and develops around the ancient side portal of the basilica of the Frari. Above a black marble plinth rise four pedestals in Carrara marble with black marble inserts, decorated with the heads of lions, from whose mouths descend festoons of fruit and flowers. Between the pedestals two black marble slabs serve as the ground for the lettering carved in relief in white marble recording the doge's years of life and his year of death: "Vixit Annos LXX" ("He lived for seventy years"), "Devixit Anno MDCLIX" ("He died in the year 1659"). On the pedestals four large

"Moors" as telamons support the first entablature, decorated with metopes and white marble triglyphs. Black marble creates the backdrop to the sculpted architectural elements, while the cornices have moldings in red Verona marble. These "Moors" echo the four telamons supporting the second entablature in the Istrian stone facade of the church of Ospedaletto, built by Longhena in about 1670. The Moors represent the African soldiers in the Ottoman service captured by the Venetians during the Cretan Wars. Large blocks of Carrara marble were used to carve the bases, their tattered garments, and the cushions supporting the entablature, while their feet, knees, muscular arms, and heads are sculpted in black Belgian marble spectacularly embedded in white marble. The effect is heightened by the way the marble is treated. The black marble bodies of the Moors are polished to a gloss, while the surfaces of their Carrara marble garments are deliberately sketched in and left unpolished, creating a matte effect, designed to further set off their complexions and flesh tints. Inside the niches between the telamons, two interesting flayed figures in black patinated bronze support the white marble drapery bearing the engraved epitaphs. The lunette over the pinewood portal is elegantly carved with scrolls and volutes. The keystone is decorated with a putto in Carrara marble holding a scroll bearing the motto: "Signa Spirantia Stabunt" ("the statues will always breathe life"). Above the rich entablature, there are four large columns in gray-veined marble with white marble capitals supporting a second entablature. In the central intercolumn, two fantastic creatures uphold the doge's black marble sarcophagus. On the front, it bears the inscription set in white marble letters: "Hie revixit Anno MDCLXIX" ("Here he lived again in the year 1669"). On the •

1658 > 1659

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sarcophagus, sculpted by the Fleming Giusto Le Court, the doge is portrayed in his robes of office. His face matches the appearance of the effigy, with a fashionable seventeenth-century mustache and lace. Large slabs of red Verona marble imitate the form of a baldachin, serving as the backdrop to the statue of the doge and rising above it. Fine pieces of embossed and gilded copper decorate the canopy and recall the precious braid woven in the period with gilt-silver threads. In front of the columns, four sculptures in Carrara marble, carved by Le Court, depict allegorical figures . From the left, they are: Innocence, winged and wearing a helmet surmounted with an eagle, in the act of shooting an arrow; Nobility, kneeling and presenting a crown to the doge; Wealth, holding a closed crown; and Study, reading with a rooster at its feet. Between the intercolumns at the sides, laid with slabs of chalcedony, appear two sculptural groups by Melchior Barthel. On the left, they depict Religion and Constancy and on the right Truth and Justice, each with its attributes. On the upper entablature, six Carrara marble slabs carved in high relief depict, to the right and left of the central coat of arms, putti presenting some symbols of the ducal power, such as the corno, a helmet and a sword, and the attributes of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture. At the center appears the Pesaro coat of arms, usually indented with blue and gold, but here onl)i carved, without any trace of coloring, raised by two putti. In addition to holding the hanging with the doge's shield, they support the patrician crown in embossed metal. The back wall above the monument ends in a pointed arch and is decorated with slabs of Istrian stone set in a geometric pattern typical of Baroque taste, with black marble slabs bounded by voluminous moldings in red Verona marble. This marked the first time that a ducal monument completely occupied a whole bay of a church. Beloved by contemporaries and detested in the nineteenth century, this cenotaph is a virtuous example of collaboration between architects and sculptors. They created a permanent monument expressing the same dynamism as the temporary ephemeral architectures built of wood and papier-mache to celebrate important public events in those same years. For almost fifty years, it was the largest funerary monument to a doge ever erected in Venice, until Silvestro Valier decided to build his own cenotaph in the basilica of Santi Giovanni e Paolo [see pp. 314-323).

/

CHURCH OF SAN FRANCESCO DELLA VIGNA

•

N

icolo and his ten brothers suffered from the infamy brought on the fam-

A

DECEMBER 18, 1606

ily by his father, sentenced for cowardice and ineptitude to ten years of

0

AUGUST 15, 1676

ll

architecture

imprisonment and the loss of the office of procurator for fleeing from the

enemy at Valeggio during the war in Monferrato. Their honor was then redeemed by the sacrifice of two brothers who were killed in the Cretan war. Sagredo followed a diplomatic career with embassies to the principal courts of the period in Rome, Germany, Spain, and France, before being elected to the ducal throne in 1675. His years of government passed peacefully. The doge expressed his wish to be buried in the chapel dedicated to his fore-

bear St. Gerardo Sagredo, in the church of San Francesco della Vigna. He purchased it in 1663 with his brother Alvise, patriarch of Venice. Since 1548, the chapel had belonged to the Basso family, who bought it from the friars when the new Franciscan church, designed by Jacopo Sansovino, was still under construction. The sixteenth-century tombstone in Istrian stone on the floor of the Basso chapel remains, formerly adorned with the family coat of arms and bearing their name on the scroll. The arms of the Basso family were removed and replaced with those of the Sagredo family in yellow Siena marble with a red Verona marble band in the center. As ambassador of the Republic of Venice to the Holy See, Nicolo Sagredo knew the leading Roman Baroque artists. He refurbished some rooms belonging to the Venetian state on Piazza Venezia in Rome, and at his own expense he had some important restoration and renovation work done on the ancient St. Mark's basilica, the church of the Venetian embassy in Rome, containing the tombs of important members of the Venetian patriciate who died there. While in Rome, the future doge also acquired some significant works of art, which formed the core of what, thanks to his grandson Zaccaria and Gerardo Sagredo, a nephew by his brother, grew into one of the most important Venetian collections of the eighteenth century.

TOMMASO TEMANZA, 1743 ll

bust GIUSTO LE COURT, ea. 1675

The name of the architect who designed the alterations to the Basso family chapel are not known, but he worked boldly, breaking through the ancient Sansovinian barrel vault to erect a dome with a lantern supported by pendentives. On returning to Venice, Sagredo commissioned the Roman painter Girolamo Pellegrini, whom he probably knew from his period as a diplomat in Rome, to fresco the vault of the chapel depicting St. Gerardo Sagredo in glory, certainly completed before the doge's death in 1676. The chapel was still unfinished when the doge was buried in the floor tomb. It was probably Zaccaria Sagredo who undertook to resume the work in the late seventeenth century. The sculptor Andiea Cominelli then created the altar in Carrara marble with the statue of St. Gerardo Sagredo with two angels and the Virgin and Child placed above the entablature of the altar. From the same period also date the sumptuous floral stucco decorations in the vein ofBernini, probably by an artist from Ticino (Switzerland) close to the manner of Abbondio Stazio. Work came to a halt again until 1738, when Gerardo Sagredo made his will, expressing the wish to erect two cenotaphs to honor the memory of his two paternal uncles, Doge Nicolo and the Patriarch Alvise. The architect, essayist, and hydiaulic engineer Tommaso Temanza had designed the facade, left unbuilt, of the family's palace in Santa Sofia on the Grand Canal (purcha~ed by Gerardo and partly rebuilt by Tirali). He was commissioned to design the two monuments in the chapel, while Giambattista Tiepolo decorated the pendentives and walls with magnificent grisaille frescoes. The classic marble aedicula on the right-hand wall contains the doge's bust in his robes of office, with the fashionable hairstyle of his time and the ducal corno. On the base of the aedicula is carved the date of execution of the cenotaph, commissioned by Gerardo and his wife Cecilia Grimani Calergi. She saw to the completion of the work in 1743 and probably commissioned the frescoes in the chapel from Tiepolo. The bust has recently been attributed to Giusto Le Court, the greatest sculptor in Venice in the second half of the seventeenth century. Considering the year of the death of the Flemish sculptor in 1679, it can be deduced that the bust was commissioned directly by Doge Nicolo, who died in 1676, and that Temanza designed the marble aedicula, since he already knew the measurements of the seventeenth-century sculpture made well over sixty years earlier. Another version of the same bust is known, also the work of Le Court and kept on the first piano nobile of Palazzo Corner Spinelli, now Palazzo Salom, at Sant' Angelo.

1675 ) 1676

N ICOLO SAGfUDO

CHURCH OF SAN FRANCESCO DELLA VIGNA

16r9

A

MARCH

0

MARCH 23, 1688

2,

M

arcantonio Giustinian's mother belonged to the branch of the family known as Giustinian dei Vescovi, since it numbered no fewer than three bishops. The father was called "buelle d' oro" ("guts of gold")

because of his great wealth. Marcantonio studied law in Padua and ancient lan-

guages, history, philosophy, and theology all through his life. In 1646, to acquire knowledge of diplomacy, he attended his brother Girolamo as ambassador to Paris, but then spent several years in religious studies and practices, without holding public office. The family's political strategy rested on Girolamo, but he died after conducting brilliant embassies to Spain, Germany, and Rome, and the same fate · befell another brother. At this point, Marcantonio was compelled to enter public life. In 1665, he was elected ambassador to Paris. He succeeded in persuading Louis XIV to support the republic in the Cretan Wars by sending a corps of troops in 1668. Marcantonio also acted as Sindaco and Inquisitore ( controller of the local administration) on the mainland, a difficult and wearisome task. He was elected doge against his will. He would have preferred to become a monk, but ultimately he had to consent. He supported Venice's membership of the Holy League against the Turks and had the honor on being elected doge of proclaiming it. He also had the joy of celebrating the successes of Francesco Morosini in the war with processions and religious festivals. These were so frequent that he was nicknamed the "doge of Te Deums." He died chanting litanies. The pious Doge Marcantonio Giustinian was buried in the family tomb at the center of the marble floor of the Badoer Giustinian chapel, in the church of San Francesco della Vigna, where the ancient Badoer family had a sepulchre. In the late fifteenth century, Girolamo Badoer had financed the marble screen

of the choir of the friars, decorated in relief with prophets holding scrolls sculpted 11

plaque

in Carrara marble and with panels depicting episodes from the life of Christ and the

ARTIST UNKNOWN, 1688

Virgin. It probably resembled the choir screen that still exists in the basilica of the Frari.

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