818 massimo favilla, ruggero rugolo, and dulcia meijers
world as well. the transposition of ephemeral set designs through trompe
l’oeil from the stage to the longer-lasting wall surfaces of churches, pal-
aces, and villas was a symptom of the will of the ruling class to amaze and
to instruct, a motto that effectively encapsulates the spirit of all Baroque
art. Suddenly, as if in a witty trick of mirrors, illusion becomes a meta-
phor for reality. a reality often harsh and brutal was thus exorcized and
sublimated through the pictorial narration of pathétiques or triumphal
sacred and mythological histories, of idealized visions of domestic life,
and of enchanted arcadian tales which sometimes provided the visual
background for lively literary academies.
even antonio Zanchi (este, 1631–Venice 1722) leader of the tenebrosi and
an artist of severe taste, could not remain completely immune from the
passion for the ephemeral that characterized his period. Having arrived
in Venice at the age of 20, Zanchi found his true teacher in the roman
(but Venetian by adoption) Francesco ruschi, after a brief apprentice-
ship with the Brescian Giacomo Pedrali. in 1657, at the beginning of his
career, Zanchi created the sets for the musical drama Le fortune di Rodope
e Damira put on at the Venetian theater of Sant’aponal,15 and at the same
time he began the composition of a treatise on the art of sculpture and
painting, now lost. Purity of design, warm tones, breadth of composition,
and counterpoints which add to the unity of the whole are the elements
distinguishing Zanchi’s artistic production.16 His masterpiece dates to
1666, consisting in the two large canvases portraying The Plague in Venice
on the right-hand wall of the main staircase in the Scuola Grande di San
rocco, characterized by a strong stage-like effect and a profound dramatic
tension. the painter displays another theatrical artifice through the cre-
ation of two different spaces separated by a column, but with a unitary
perspective: a “great theater” that allows him to stage as dramatic an event
as the pestilence of 1630.17 Critics from Marco Boschini forward have con-
sidered this work to be Zanchi’s greatest endeavor.18
15 Massimo Favilla and ruggero rugolo, “Un tenebroso all’opera. appunti su antonio
Zanchi,” Venezia Arti 17/18 (2003–04, 2006), 63.
16 Pietro Zampetti, Antonio Zanchi, in I pittori Bergamaschi dal XIII al XIX secolo, Il Sei
cento, vol. 4 (Bergamo, 1987), pp. 389–707.
17 Lionello Puppi and ruggero rugolo, “‘Un’ordinaria forma non alletta.’ arte, rifles-
sione sull’arte e società,” in Gino Benzoni and antonio Menniti ippolito, Storia di Venezia.
Dalle origini alla caduta della Serenissima, 14 vols (rome, 1992–2002), vol. 7 (1997): La Vene
zia barocca, ed. Gino Benzoni and Gaetano Cozzi, pp. 635–36.
18 Marco Boschini, La ricche minere della pittura veneziana (Venice, 1674), p. 51.