art in venice, 1400–1600 799
popular polyptych settings. Giovanni Bellini solved the problem with his
painting in the Pesaro chapel in S. Maria dei Frari by fabricating a uni-
fied space behind the setting. images with antique motifs could be inte-
grated in a late gothic setting as in Bartolomeo Vivarini’s St Mark’s Altar in
S. Maria dei Frari (1474).
While multipartite altars (the polyptych) were becoming outdated,
painted and hewn stone tablets (the pale) became common. Giovanni
Bellini’s Madonna with Saints for S. Giobbe (c.1470; burned in 1867) and
Antonello da Messina’s Madonna with Saints for S. cassiano (c.1470) (frag-
ments in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Wien) had a groundbreaking and
exemplary affect. However, the gathering of saints around the Madonna
(sacra conversazione), in which, as in Giovanni Bellini’s altarpiece in
S. Zaccaria, the saints are present together in the same space but at the
same time each alone in their own respective space, became a common
model.
Altarpieces with saints in a realistic-looking chapel, often with a mosaic
apse, were popular. Apse mosaics were found at the beginning of the
16th century in the medieval S. Marco and in S. Salvatore. the seminal
work of Venetian renaissance mosaic is the vault of the sacristy of San
Marco (after 1493–c.1530).
Painters such as Giovanni Bellini and cima da conegliano (1459/60–
1517/18) refrained from taking up the details and sometimes the colors
of the sculptured frames in order to create a seamless continuation of
the architecture of the picture into the painting and thus create a trompe
l’oeil. the location of the saints was supposed to be invitingly near, yet not
comfortably approachable.
titian’s works did not become the only measure for aesthetic quality
after Giorgione’s death (1510). Albrecht Dürer’s rosary painting for the
chapel of the German Merchants in San Bartolomeo (in 1506; Prague,
national Gallery) was also a response to the images of the aged Giovanni
Bellini whom he so admired. titian’s Assunta on the high altar of S. Maria
dei Frari with its larger-than-life, passionately emotional apostles (1518)
was greeted with incomprehension by the Franciscan brothers. the paint-
ing, with its monumental figures, and the expectations shaped by tradi-
tion seemed to be incompatible. titian’s Pesaro-Madonna (S. Maria dei
Frari, 1519–26) brought a further break with tradition. titian shifted the
Madonna from the central axis of the painting and enthroned her in front
of two eccentrically arranged giant pillars. She became a counterpart to
the patron Jacopo Pesaro, who is kneeling in the left side of the paint-
ing, accompanied by his family. the coat of arms of the Borgia pope on