In this church strategically located between Rialto and San Marco you can admire two late masterpieces by Titian.
Titian painted the Transfiguration as well as the Annunciation for San Salvador in the 1560ies when he was over 70 years old and the world of his youth had deeply changed. Catholics and Protestants were fighting devastating wars in many areas of Europe.
If you want to indulge in your interest in the 18th-century Venetian lifestyle, the museum of Ca’ Mocenigo is one of the most appropriate places where to go.
The museum (housing also the Centre of Studies on the History of Textiles and Costumes) is located on the noble floor of palazzo Mocenigo at San Stae.
Strolling through the rooms you can sense the pleasure for material beauty, which characterizes the culture of a people who traded for centuries with luxury goods: carved and gilded furniture, Murano chandeliers, and appliques, velvet fabrics, Burano laces, and table cloaks, frescoes and paintings. Most of the artworks and objects were purchased by the Mocenigo family and are original to the palace.
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Giovanni Mansueti, The Miraculous Healing of the Daughter of ser Benvegnudo of San Polo, c. 1505, Accademia Gallery, Venice.
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In her marvelous book about 16th century Venice interiors, Isabella Fossati Palumbo Casa made a thorough research in ancient inventories, bringing out a world of astonishing richness and color. No doubt that the level and quality of life in Venice, as the author states several times, were higher than anywhere else in Europe.
Paintings were to be found in every house, including those of the common people. Documents show two small butchers at the Ponte dell’Aseo owning 22 paintings, a merchant of cheese owning 25, and a shopkeeper in the Mercerie 13.
We also know of a plume-seller, of a boilermaker, of carpenters and boat builders who owned small paintings. Even in the humblest houses, you could find drawings or paintings on paper.
Subjects were usually religious, like the figure of a Saint to invoke for protection, lots of Madonnas (often in Greek style), and the Three Kings. Sometimes subjects were more exotic, showing, for example, a Turkish figure, man or woman, and there were many portraits of important people, like the Queen of Cyprus, Caterina Cornaro, or the one of a Pope or a Doge, that people would have to make their home more distinguishing.
Madonna degli Alberetti, 1487, Giovanni Bellini, Accademia Gallery, Venice.
More rarely, and usually in the richer houses, where people had more opportunities to travel, you could find geographic subjects, like cosmographies, landscapes of other cities or countries. There are anyway exceptions, like the case of a wool-worker owning four paintings about Africa, Asia, Europe, and Peru.
In the houses of the merchants and nobles, the number and the dimension of the paintings were larger, showing also a greater variety in the subjects.
It is easy to imagine that in a city where people were so devoted to art and images, there was a fertile ground that allowed artists like Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, Tintoretto, or Veronese (to mention just a few of them) to develop their talent and creativity.
The book of Isabella Fossati Palumbo Casa is available at the moment in French and in Italian.
Carpaccio, Birth of the Virgin Mary, 1508. Accademia Carrara, Bergamo.
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In jedem venezianischen Haus waren Gemälde zu finden, auch in denen der einfachen Leute. Selbst in den bescheidensten Häusern konnte man Zeichnungen oder Gemälde auf Papier finden.
Die Motive waren normalerweise religiös, wie die Figur eines Heiligen, der zum Schutz herangezogen werden sollte, viele Madonnen (oft im griechischen Stil) und die Drei Könige. Manchmal waren die Motive exotischer und zeigten zum Beispiel eine türkische Figur, einen Mann oder eine Frau, und es gab viele Porträts wichtiger Personen. In den reicheren Häusern, in denen die Menschen mehr Reisemöglichkeiten hatten, konnte man sogar geografische Themen wie Kosmografien, Landschaften anderer Städte oder Länder finden.
San Sebastiano, The Coronation of Ester, Paolo Veronese
In spite of the confusion and the thousands of people in the narrow alleyways, there are still places where you can hide from crowds and noises: churches in Venice are a real oasis of peace and beauty.
From August 29th and until December 1st there will be one more reason to visit the Accademia Galleries.
Alongside with masterpieces by Titian, Bellini, Veronese, Tintoretto, Carpaccio and many others, visitors will have a unique occasion to see an exhibition on Renaissance drawings dating from 1478 to 1516, which includes the famous Vitruvian Man by Leonardo da Vinci.
Muriel Ba
¿Do you bead?, a group of glass-beads makers and jewel designers, organizes a series of workshops and events on the making and the history of glass beads See their story and events calendar here:http://www.doyoubead.com/
In the photos see Muriel Balensi, French glass-beads maker, who lives in Venice, in the atelier she has together with her friend Dominique Brunet in San Barnaba.
A fashion-music-dance show will take place on May 23rd at the Magazzini del Sale; with percussionist Francesco Tomasutti, the dance performance of Federico Casali, the music of Andrea Mattarucco, the wearable sculptures of Olga Rostrosta and the Haute-Couture Glass Jewelry of the ¿Do you Bead? group.
Artisans spend their time on improving their techniques, finding new patterns, inventing variations on the things they produce. When you look at them, they are totally immersed in what they are doing. But in Venice, once the home of some among the most magnificent craftspeople in Europe, they are all disappearing.
The very high rents for workshops and a crazy bureaucracy are forcing many small shops and especially craftspeople to close down (including one of the most important bookshops, not able to pay any longer 9000 euros a month). Artisans are notoriously no managers or lawyers, they can’t keep the pace with the constantly changing administrative requests, neither with the very high taxation. Not to talk of the problems of maintaining a workshop in Venice: acqua alta, humidity, water infiltrations, bricks falling apart.
Can tourists help these precious activities to survive? Yes, they can.
If you visit Venice, please be more selective when you buy souvenirs. It is better to buy some handmade bookmarks for 3 euros each instead of a peace of glass made industrially and of poor quality for 20 euros.
It is better to go and discover the small workshops out of the centre, where things are still handmade with passion and dedication, instead of buying the usual industrial stuff in shops that belong to chains.
Stefano Casati, who produces hand-printed paper, leather and velvet will close his workshop toward the end of May 2013. The colors he uses are unique; he is rather an artist than an artisan. If you are in Venice don’t miss him! If you have friends in Venice, tell them to go and buy their Christmas presents there.
You can find his workshop in Barbaria delle Tole 6676 (close to campo Santi Giovanni e Paolo).
Map of the city of Canea (Chania) on Crete. 16th century, ink and watercolor drawing on parchment.
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This small exhibition curated by the director of the Doge’s Palace, Camillo Tonini, and by Diana Cristante, offers the extraordinary privilege to see original drawings on parchment and on paper made between the 16th and the 18th century of Venetian fortresses in the Mediterranean area.
Venice, besides being an extraordinarily wealthy and glamorous city, was also political and military power. The preservation of important outposts in the Mediterranean sea secured the routes of commercial convoys heading toward Alexandria in Egypt, to Constantinople, Cyprus, Haifa, and many other destinations.
Made by blown glass or through lamp-work, of different shapes and colors, enriched by microscopic glass threads, the Venetian glass beads are still today a must-have for every woman living in the city.
In Venice there are still some glass beads shops, different for style and design, where you can find unique pieces.
In the district of Santa Croce, a small shop reveals an incredible variety of beads. The owner of this little and hidden shrine, Cristina Bedin, is a passionate jewel designer who travels throughout Europe, the Mediterranean world and also to the States, to search ancient or vintage beads.
She designs and makes personally the necklaces that you can see in her shop, but she can make up one for you with the beads that you can choose yourself from her amazing collection.
Cristina is also a fabulous narrator and while you are there you can listen to the many stories she knows about this beloved jewel, as for example that in the 17th and 18th century they were used as currency in Africa and in America to trade with the Natives.
The creativity of Cristina Bedin is constantly inspired by the long tradition, the today fashion and by that sense for glamour that has always accompanied Venetian women throughout the long history of the city.
If in Venice, don’t miss her!
L’Opera al Bianco – Santa Croce 1239/a – Venice
www.operavenezia.com
The most photographed bridge of Venice, the most romantic, the most mysterious.
The covered bridge that leads from the Doge’s Palace to the Prisons has, in fact, somber fame. Some people think that it was named after the laments of those who were going to be executed. It sounds like a good reason but unfortunately there are no records about it.