Illuminating the Serenissima: Books of the Republic of Venice
admin-g4a on May 13, 2011 with 0 Comments
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
May 3-June 19, 2011
La Serenissima, or the Most Serene Republic of Venice, existed for over a millennium from the late seventh century to 1797. At the height of its power in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries it was the center of an empire extending from mainland Italy to the eastern Mediterranean. The head of state was a Doge who was elected for life by the nobility.
Books, called commissioni, are presentation copies of contracts of Venetian noblemen elected to oversee the Serenissima’s provinces for usually sixteen months, or to be lifelong administrators of the city of Venice. From the mid-1400s until the fall of the Republic, office-holders had their commissioni elaborately written, illuminated and bound by hand. Commemorating service to the state, personal achievement, and taste, these manuscripts were objects of privilege, power, and beauty.
Isabella Stewart Gardner’s commissioni not only reflect her passion for Venice—as seen in her Venetian-style palace and its art from the Serenissima—but also her love of books. She started to collect rare volumes in the mid-1880s before she began to buy art, encouraged by Charles Eliot Norton, Harvard’s first professor of art history and an expert book collector. Mrs. Gardner acquired three of the commissioni displayed along with fourteen other Venetian manuscripts from Norton. He sold them to Gardner because he believed that she alone would appreciate the books’ artistic and historical value as a collection.
Italian (Venice), Upper cover of the commissione of Doge Giovanni II Cornaro to Giovanni Bollani as Podestà of Chioggia, 1718. Repoussé and chased, height 22 cm x width 18 cm x depth 3.5 cm (closed).
The commissioni are displayed in the Long Gallery where Mrs. Gardner kept them and her other most prized books. Her collection enables us to admire the evolution over three centuries of Venetian book-decoration, illuminating the past glory of the Serenissima.
The following commissioni are displayed in the exhibition:
Illumination
- Doge Cristoforo Moro to Domenico Diedo as Procurator of St. Mark, 1464
- Doge Francesco Donato to Vincenzo Gritti as Lieutenant of Udine, 1546
- Doge Giovanni Bembo to Francesco Contarini as Procurator de citra, 1615.
Binding
- Doge Francesco Donato to Girolamo Morosini as Captain of Brescia, 1547
- Commissione of a member of the Fradello family (?), around 1580-2
- Commissione of an unknown Venetian nobleman, mid-seventeenth century
- Doge Giovanni II Cornaro to Giovanni Bollani as Podestà of Chioggia, 1718.
This exhibition was made possible by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and curated by Anne-Marie Eze, Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Curatorial Fellow at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. She would like to thank for their scholarly assistance: Lilian Armstrong, Matteo Casini, Carlo Corsato, Frederick Ilchman, Hope Mayo, Laura Nuvoloni, Dorit Raines, and Helena Szépe.
