Page 254 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

scale paintings, most notably in his Reception of
the Ambassadors from the Saint Ursula cycle (Ac-
cademia, Venice), which included some set-piece
demonstrations of geometrical forms in perspec-
tive in the manner of Uccello and Piero della
Francesca (Daly Davis 1980). The great narrative
view paintings by Carpaccio and his Venetian
rivals represent a logical climax of one aspect of
Brunelleschi's invention of perspective some
eighty years earlier.
M.K.

±51

Jacopo de' Barbari
Venetian, active before 1495 —died by 1516
VIEW OF VENICE
1500
woodcut on six separate blocks (first state)
5
l
143 x 309 ($6 /4 x I2i /s) (approx)
references: Kristeller 1896; Servolini 1944; Pignatti
1964; National Gallery of Art 1973; Levenson 1978;
Schulz 1978; London 1983
Hamburger Kunsthalle

The authorship of the design of this most aston-
ishing of all Renaissance map-views of a city is not
in doubt, although the woodcut is unsigned —
unless we read Mercury's caduceus as Jacopo's
own device, for it appears on other of his works.
In 1500 Anton Kolb, a German printer in Venice,
applied successfully to the Venetian authorities
for a four-year copyright and a license to export
preliminary study survives (Albertina, Vienna). palace in the same detail as does Carpaccio, but his the print without paying duty, stressing the effort
The use of gold leaf to reinforce the decorative depiction of many of the other features tallies well -, involved over a three-year period, the high price
details, such as the splendid candelabra that have with the painting, including the position of what per copy (at least three florins) needed to recover
been carried up to the balcony, not only empha- Barbari labels as the "fontico dalamanj" on the his costs, and the fact that it had been undertaken
sizes the magnificence of the event but also attests right—the Fondaco dei Tedeschi — the German chiefly for the fame of "this supreme city of
to the fact that the Scuola spared no expense in its merchants' warehouse that was to receive the Venice" (Schulz 1978). The print's emphasis upon
artistic competition with other Scoule. The com- famous wall paintings by Titian and Giorgione. the benefits that Mercury and Neptune bring to
bination of a particular and vividly topical miracle The architecture on the left of the Grand Canal Venice —the former shining on "this above all
with the annual rituals that conferred a special is carefully aligned so that the orthogonals all run other emporia" and the latter stilling the waters
status on the Scuola within Venetian society is to a common vanishing point halfway across the of "this port" — are clearly designed to appeal to
brilliantly expressed by Carpaccio through an picture and at the level of the cornice above the the city's self-regard and to promote its image
unrivaled depiction of the Grand Canal and its arches of the balcony. It appears that to achieve elsewhere.
flanking palaces and warehouses. this spatial coherence on the left Carpaccio Jacopo is known as an itinerant painter and
The essential accuracy with which Carpaccio indulged in some slight regularizing of the build- engraver of high intellectual aspirations, who
has depicted the buildings in the area of the Rialto ing lines. By contrast, the buildings visible on the spent much of his career in the service of north-
Bridge can be confirmed both by reference to the right behind the bridge are arranged in a more ern courts (Levenson 1978). He is not known to
same scene today — although the wooden bridge erratic manner around the curve of the canal and have been a woodcutter, and the question must
has long since been replaced by the present stone were probably laid in by eye to give an impression remain open as to whether Jacopo himself cut the
structure, to less picturesque effect —and by com- of the variety of angles at which they were set. six blocks or whether Kolb hired the services of
parison with the relevant section of Jacopo de' Although he has given a formal rigor to the por- one of the Venetian specialists. The original blocks
Barbaras great View of Venice, which was pub- tion of the canvas in which the main event takes survive in the Museo Correr, Venice. Three states
lished in 1500 (cat. 151). Barbari and Carpaccio place, the overall effect is one of daring asymme- of the print are known (Pignatti 1964), of which
agree on the basic structure of the bridge, with the try, perhaps sanctioned in part by the painting's twelve examples of the first state have been
four pylons from which the central span was sus- lateral position beside the altar. The relative recorded.
pended and could be raised. The boxed-in flanks informality is obviously a matter of calculation There is evidence that maps produced during
of the bridge contained shops, much in the rather than chance, since Carpaccio demonstrated the cartographic revolution of the Renaissance — a
manner of the Ponte Vecchio in Florence. Barbari a sophisticated command of perspective in orches- revolution that centered on the study of Ptolemy's
does not show the architecture of the Patriarch's trating architectural settings throughout his large- methods and achievements—were already attract-

EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN WORLD 2 53