Eva Renzulli, Venice International University

This is an introductory course to Venetian Art and Architecture which provides a survey from the 15th to the first half of the 16th century. Art, architecture, culture, history and politics will be considered exploring their interaction. After having examined what historians call “the Myth” of Venice, and considered the institutions that gave shape to it, the course will concentrate on the various forms that such “Myth” took during the 15 th and 16 th centuries in art, in architecture and, on a larger scale, in urban strategies. The course will begin by focusing on several sectors of the town. An analysis of its two major centers: the political and religious one, Piazza San Marco, (the Ducal palace, the ducal Ducal Chapel, the Procuratie, the Library, the Mint and the Loggetta) and the economic one, the Rialto (the bridge, the “insula”), will be followed by an examination of minor catalyzing centers around which Venetian and foreign communities assembled such as: Scuole Grandi and Piccole with their narrative cycles (Carpaccio and Bellini), the German Fondaco and the Ghetto, manifestations of that mythical harmony between classes and of hospitality towards foreigners.

A analysis of private and public buildings and their patrons, secular and sacred, will be the starting point to develop various themes such as magnificence, ritual uses of public space, architecture and art, self representation of the State, and of the governing élite in its private palaces and chapels. This approach will be carried out trying at the same time to highlight how the peculiarity of Venice, and its complex heritage - since it considered itself a second Constantinople and a second Rome- influenced the way in which the “new language” of the Renaissance was introduced into town and evolved from the 15th to the 16th century, concentrating on concepts such as renovation and innovation, and tradition and interpretation of models.

Classes will be integrated by seminars on site. Readings from the course pack are required for each session.

Aim of the course
The goal is to encourage the student's awareness of the meanings of built space, and to provide the student with an intellectual vocabulary for the critical discussion of art and architecture.

Evaluation
Attendance and participation in class and on site visits 25%;
Midterm exam 35%;
Paper, (8-10 pages, topic to be chosen at the beginning of the semester, and in accordance with instructor) 40%

Course Outline
1.1 – Venice: Myth and reality.
1.2 - Venetian Society and its Institutions.
2.1 - Piazza San Marco.
2.2 - The Ducal Palace.
3.1 - Discussion.
3.2 - VISIT to the Ducal Palace.
4.1 - The palaces of two patricians in the XVI century: Ca' d'Oro and Ca' Foscari. Ducal allusions on private facades.
4.2 - Art, religion and politics doge's Foscari's time: the Cappella dei Mascoli in Saint Mark's church and the Cappella d'oro Chapel San Zaccaria. (deadline for PAPER TOPIC PROPOSITION)
5.1 - Triumph over death: the Doge's tomb in the XV century.
5.2 - Scuole Grandi e Piccole. Architecture in the name of Piety, XV century.
5.2 - Scuole Grandi e Piccole: Architecture in the name of Piety, XVI century.
6.2 – Scuole Grandi e Piccole: Art in the name of Piety: Bellini and Carpaccio
7.1 - Giovanni Bellini's altarpieces..
7.2 - VISIT to the Accademia.
8.1 - HALF TERM EXAM.
8.2 - Florentine and Lombard Renaissance echoes in Venetian ecclesiastical architecture: San Michele in Isola and of Santa Maria de' Miracoli
9.1 - The German Fondaco and the Germans' Chapel. Commercial alliances and cross-cultural consequences. The Jewish Enclosures: Ghetto Nuovo and Ghetto Vecchio.
9.2 VISIT - Scuola to Santa Maria de' Miracoli, San Giovanni e Paolo, San Zaccaria
10.1 – Tiziano Vecellio.
10.2 - Venice after the Sack of Rome (1527).
11.1 A Roman architect in Venice: Jacopo Sansovino and the Library, the Mint and the Loggetta.
11.2 From Ca' Loredan to Ca' Corner: the transformation of the Venetian Palace and the
absorption of the new language.
12.1 - Andrea Gritti's patronage in Piazza San Marco and at San Francesco della Vigna: two sides of the medal.
12.2- VISIT to San Franceso della Vigna.

Recommended preliminary reading
Fortini Brown , Patricia, Art and Life in Renaissance Venice, New York-London 1997.

General Bibliography
Chambers, David and Pullan, Brian, Venice: A Documentary History , 1450-1630, Oxford 1992 (Primary sources).
Chambers, David S., The Imperial Age of Venice , London 1970.
Concina, Ennio, A History of Venetian Architecture , Cambridge, New York, Melbourne 1998.
Finlay, Robert, Politics in Renaissance Venice, New Brunswick 1980.
Fortini Brown, Patricia, Venice and Antiquity. The Venetian Sense of the Past , New Haven- London 1997.
Fortini Brown, Patricia, Venetian Narrative Painting in the Age of Carpaccio , New Haven-London 1990.
Goffen, Rona, Piety and Patronage in Renaissance Venice: Bellini, Titian, and the Franciscans , New Haven and London 1986.
Huse, Norbert and Wolters, Wolfgang, The Art of Renaissance Venice. Architecture, Sculpture, and Painting, 1460-1590 , Chicago and London 1990.
Howard, Deborah, The Architectural History of Venice , revised and enlarged edition, New Haven and London 2002.
Humfrey, Peter, The Altarpiece of Renaissance Venice , New Haven and London 1993.
Rosand, David, Painting in Cinquecento Venice: Titian, Veronese, Tintoretto , [first printed New Haven and London 1982] Cambridge, New York, Melbourne 1997.
Rosand, David, Myths of Venice. The Figuration of a State , Chapel Hill and London 2001.
Tafuri, Manfredo, Venice and the Renaissance , Cambridge Mass. and London 1989.
Brown, P.F., ‘Honour and necessity: the dynamics of patronage, in the confraternities of Venice', Studi veneziani , n.s.,14 (1987).

Eva Renzulli Laurea in Architecture and Dottorato in History of Architecture (IUAV). Maître de conférence (Lecturer) in the MA programme at the Institut de Sciences Politiques de Paris. Was Teaching Fellow at Harvard and Teaching Assistant at IUAV and the University of Ferrara. Taught at VIU in Fall 2003 and Fall 2004. Contributed to the exhibition Palladio nel Nord Europa. Libri, viaggiatori e architetti organised by the Centro Internazionale di Studi di Architettura 'Andrea Palladio' of Vicenza (CISA). Published : La crociera e la facciata di Santa Maria di Loreto: problemi di ridefinizione in "Annali di Architettura", XV, 2003; Modelli e reinterpretazioni: Borromini e l'altare cosmatesco di S. Maria Maddalena a S. Giovanni in Oleo , in Atti del Convegno “Borromini e l'universo barocco” , (Roma, 13-15 Gennaio 2000), Milano: Electa 2000, pp. 162-65 and Borromini restauratore: S. Giovanni in Oleo e S. Salvatore a Ponte Rotto , in 'Annali', X, 1998, pp.203-220. Also variously contributed to the catalogue of the exhibition for the 4th centenary of the birth of Borromini edited by Richard Bösel and Christoph L. Frommel, Borromini e l'universo barocco , (Bibliotheca Hertziana, Max Planck Institut, Istituto Austriaco di Studi Storici) Milano: Electa 1999. Forthcoming: Loreto, Leo X and the fortifications on the Adriatic coast against the Infidel , in Christine Shaw editor, Italy as Theatre of War, (Warwick Studies in the Humanities, to appear Leiden: Brill 2005).