The city of Venice holds a special place in the global imagination. This book explores the creation of one of its largest surviving depictions, which has remained almost unknown to the wider public since its creation exactly four centuries ago. Singed and dated 1611, the painting is the work of the notable early seventeenth-century Bolognese artist Odoardo Fialetti. His huge birds-eye view of the watery townscape is enlivened by tiny vignettes of Venetian life. Eight square meters in size, this remarkable painting is a tour-de-force among depictions of cities. In 1636 the painting was given to Eton College by the former British ambassador to Venice, Sir Henry Wotton. Over the centuries it was known only to pupils and masters at the school, its surface obscured by layers of grime. Restored in 2010-11, Fialetti's view has emerged as a striking work of real artistic merit. Its prominent position in the British Museum's Shakespeare exhibition in the summer of 2012 brought it to the attention of the general public for the very first time. This book takes a closer look at the remarkable picture and the context in which it was created. What kind of artist was Odoardo Fialetti, a Bolognese immigrant hoping to fill the shoes of the recently deceased great masters of the Venetian Renaissance? What image does it present of Venice? What sort of a figure was Henry Wotton, and informed connoisseur and a passionate playing the European politics, though not as diplomatic as perhaps he should have been? This is a relatively neglected period of both in Venetian art history and in British culture, the Jacobean prelude to the enthusiasm for Venetian art of Charles I's court. This beautiful commemorative volume is interdisciplinary in scope, involving history of art, political history, cartography, architectural history and English literature and bibliophilia, as well as a story of restoration and its techniques, drawn together by one of the most distinctive views ever inspired by the townscape of Venice.

An exceptional photographic report of the most beautiful city in the world, completely deserted, under the exceptional circumstances of the Corona virus lockdown.

Commemorating the 500th anniversary of the founding of the Venice Ghetto, this magnificent hand-bound Ultimate Collection volume introduces readers to the beauty and historical and spiritual significance of the five principal synagogues in Venice, the most important markers of Jewish faith and culture in the Most Serene Republic. Behind the walls of the Ghetto, Venetian Jews expressed strong ties to the traditions of their forefathers in constructing these beautiful places of worship. The architecture, furnishings, and decorations blended the memory of their different countries of origin with traditions of Venetian artistic culture, bequeathing the City on the Lagoon enduring monuments of unparalleled eminence that remain sites of reverence and admiration.

Join Turner (1775-1851) as he progresses through the city, beginning at St. Mark's Basilica with the campanile towering above and the coral-colored exterior of the Doge's Palace. Drift onward toward the Bridge of Sighs and take a detour past the Hotel Europa, where Turner preferred to stay. Travel onward past the Giardini Reali, the Punta della Dogana and Santa Maria della Salute on your way to San Giorgio Maggiore and the Accademia. Drift away from the bustling markets around the Rialto on the Grand Canal heading toward the Frari and the Scuola Grande di San Rocco, taking in the inspirations for Venetian masters such as Tintoretto and Veronese.

"Examines the intersection of private art collecting, domestic social life, and recreational practices in Renaissance Venice"--

The Rise of the Image reveals how illustrations have come to play a primary part in books on art and architecture. Italian Renaissance art is the main focus for this anthology of essays which analyse key episodes in the history of illustration from the sixteenth to the twentieth century. The authors raise new issues about the imagery in books on the visual arts by Leonardo da Vinci, Giorgio Vasari, Sebastiano Serlio, Andrea Palladio, Girolamo Teti and Andrea Pozzo. The concluding essays evaluate the roles of reproductive media, including photography, in Victorian and twentieth-century art books. Throughout, images in books are considered as vehicles for ideas rather than as transparent, passive visual forms, dependent on their accompanying texts. Thus The Rise of the Image enriches our understanding of the role of prints in books on art.

A study of Christ as Man of Sorrows in the Venetian world from the late Medieval through the Baroque era. Art and Faith in Venice is the first study of the Man of Sorrows in the art and culture of Venice and her dominions across three centuries. A subject imbued with deep spiritual and metaphorical significance, the image pervaded late-Medieval Europe but assumed in the Venetian world an unusually rich and long life. The book presents a biography, first tracing the transmission of the image as a vertical, half-length figure devoid of narrative from the Byzantine East c. 1275 and then exploring its gradual adaptation and diffusion across the Venetian state to a wide range of media, reaching from small manuscript illuminations to panel paintings, altarpieces, tombs and liturgical furnishings. Analyzing its nomenclature, visual form and layered meanings, the study demonstrates how this universal image played a prominent role responding to public and private devotions in the spiritual and cultural life of Venice and its larger political sphere of influence. Catherine Puglisi and William Barcham have written extensively on the Man of Sorrows and co-curated an exhibition on the subject in New York in 2011. Each also publishes separately, Puglisi on Caravaggio and Bolognese art, and Barcham on Venetian 18th-century painting.