A Companion to Venetian History, 1400-1797

Venetian art, 1600–1797

Massimo Favilla, ruggero rugolo, and Dulcia Meijers*

Part One: The 17th Century

On 21 august 1609, Galileo Galilei gave a demonstration of his recently
perfected telescope to Doge Leonardo Donà and the senators of the Vene-
tian republic from a room atop the bell-tower of St. Mark’s. By means
of this extraordinary instrument, places and things once invisible to the
naked eye suddenly came within view: in this case, even the domes of the
basilica of Santa Giustina in Padua.1 Venice thus witnessed the beginning
of a new vision of the world, which in the realm of painting helped bring
about the infinite and vertiginous perspectives displayed on the baroque
walls and ceilings of all of europe.
three years earlier, in 1606, the roman curia had excommunicated the
republic of San Marco for the state’s stalwart defense of its own jurisdic-
tion (the interdict crisis). in the face of unacceptable interference from
rome, the Dominante reacted with obstinate opposition and held its
ground throughout the trying episode. the passing of the century brought
still other critical moments: the devastating plague of 1630, followed by
the disastrous war of Candia (1645–69), in which Venice finally lost the
homonymous island (Crete in italian) to the Ottoman empire, the high
point in 1687 of Venice’s long-awaited first victories over the Ottomans led
by the future Doge Francesco Morosini “il Peloponnesiaco,” and the appro-
priately solemn consecration of the monumental Basilica della Salute in
1631 (in the wake of the plague) designed by Baldassare Longhena. this

• in this chapter on Venetian art a subdivision has been made, with the part on the
  17th century being written by Massimo Favilla and ruggero rugolo and that on the 18th
  century by Dulcia Meijers. the somewhat divergent approaches can in part be attributed
  to the differences in historiographical traditions and type of scholarship pertaining to each
  century. Whereas study of Venetian 17th-century art is of relatively recent date and as of
  now largely concerned with cataloguing and classifying, scholarly interest in Venetian art
  of the 18th century can boast of a longstanding critical and international research that also
  embarked on studies of cultural historical nature. Within the context of this volume, the
  authors have preferred to focus primarily on the artworks that have been produced for
  the main island of Venice.
  1 Il cannocchiale di Galileo: Venezia 1609–2009 (Venice, 2009) [istituto veneto di scienze,
  lettere ed arti].