786 wolfgang wolters
not encourage the readiness of the co-workers to take up the style of the
director of the workshop.
in the last quarter century, a rival as gifted as Vittoria arose in the per-
son of Girolamo campagna, who brilliantly triumphed with his high altars
for il redentore (1589–90) and S. Giorgio (commissioned 1592) and the
challenge—which was most probably his own—of installing large-scale
bronze altars in Palladio’s spaces without detracting from the building
itself. However, his work still belongs only in the margins of this chapter.
Casa and Palazzothe ambitious citizen (cittadino) and his family utilized paintings in
order to communicate ideals, their education, their finesse as collectors,
and, similar to the nobili, dynastic constructs. Until the end of the 16th
century, murals formative to the townscape offered the owner of a palace
not only the possibility to proclaim the antique origins of his family but
also the opportunity to exhibit his artistic preferences. the genre offered
painters an opportunity to rouse public attention to their art. Before 1510,
Giorgione (c.1477–1510) and titian (1488/90–1576) painted two façades
for the Fondaco dei tedeschi (most recently removed frescos of titian
in the ca’ d’Oro), commissioned by the republic. in 1531/32, Giovanni
Antonio Pordenone, completely disregarding the rules which were to be
published in 1537 by Serlio, created a tourist attraction with his painting of
the Palace d’Anna on the canal Grande—the owner, a Flemish merchant,
was surely not displeased. At that time even modest homes were colorful
and often ornamentally decorated. today the colorless and imageless
façades of the 15th and 16th centuries represent an impoverishment and
a Venice in which occupants have been robbed of an important means
of self-expression; since the end of the 16th century, often through wind
and weather, the city has, color-wise, gradually come ever closer to the
architectural ideals of the 17th and 18th centuries. Fragments of a few
figural decorations have been preserved. Among a few other fragments,
pieces of tintoretto’s façade paintings on the Gussoni palace have been
restored.
Paintings on the walls of the palace rooms were so rare that the paint-
ing of the palace of the patriarch Giovanni Grimani at S. Maria Formosa
(since 1537) can be understood as a self-confident departure from Vene-
tian custom—a demand for attention. Furthermore, here, artists who
worked in the roman tradition were preferred (among others, Giovanni