art in venice, 1400–1600 787
da Udine, Francesco Salviati, and Federico Zuccari). through the medium
of art and the picture program, Giovanni Grimani wanted to send a mes-
sage to rome and weaken accusations of heresy as well. it was different
with camillo trevisan. For the interior decoration of his palace on Murano
(a lagoon island that had its own administrative authority), which also
deviated from the Venetian tradition of the city palace, he chose artists
residing exclusively in Venice (Paolo Veronese [1528–88], Giambattista
Zelotti [c.1526–78], and Alessandro Vittoria), an avowal corresponding
to his own intellectual orientation and interests. in the terra firma villas
of the Venetians, there was a rich painting tradition. Here the building
owners could choose their themes without breaching unwritten laws and
conventions.
A central theme of the paintings in the city palace was the family. Apart
from group portraits, of which tintoretto’s pictures of members of the
Soranzo family (Milan, castel Sforzesco) stand out artistically, there are
portraits of the master of the house as well as his wife, their children, and
their ancestors. Francesco Vecellio’s (1475–1559/60) family portrait (Museo
correr) is only one example. Large-format portraits of patrons with their
families were popular and were just as much professions of the christian
faith as records of a moment in time. Paolo Veronese’s cuccina Family
(Dresden Staatsgalerie) and titian’s portrait of the Vendramin (London,
national Gallery) are artistically superlative examples. the portraits prob-
ably adorned the central halls, on the upper floors of the palaces, which
were accessible to guests. the image that painters communicated of fami-
lies stands memorably and eloquently next to that portrayed in literary
texts. the painted harmony and the finely graduated hierarchy of the
protagonists communicated an ideal, which in the emphasis on harmony
corresponded as much to the ideal of the family as to the harmonizing
literary myth of the republic.
Madonnas were found in almost every residence, which explains the
large number still extant today and also explains, as a result of the high
demand, their sometimes modest quality. All of them, be they painted,
from stone or stucco (like large-format Madonnas from the workshop of
Sansovino), served individual devotion as well as functioning to exhibit
an outer display of piety.
Portraits of women in the form of a reclining Venus or of family mem-
bers in mythological dress were found in more than a few 16th-century
homes. the contrast between portraits and idyllically beautiful forms
appears to not have been considered a problem, no different than with
antique statues. A letter from Giovanni della casa to cardinal Alessandro