824 massimo favilla, ruggero rugolo, and dulcia meijers
Louis Dorigny (Paris, 1654–Verona, 1742) arrived to Venice only at the end
of the 1670s. But his almost abstract perfection in design, his ability to
foreshorten figures and balance light and shadow, his excellence in the
science of perspective,33 his sublime and heroic style learned in Paris under
the tutelage of Charles Le Brun, his stay in rome where he frequented
the academy of St. Luke, and, not least, his being the nephew of Simon
Vouet were the factors which, in the last quarter of the 17th century, made
Dorigny highly sought-after by those patricians of both Venice and the ter
raferma who were already great admirers of the examples of roman art
and the French gran gout then in vogue. From the great canvases of the
portego of Ca’ tron (1685) to the frescoes in the great hall of Ca’ Zenobio
(1696–98),34 Dorigny’s fame as a restless academic was progressively con-
solidated, and he provided a lesson from which artists of later generations,
such as ricci, Pellegrini, and tiepolo, would profit (Fig. 22.4).
Gregorio Lazzarini’s The Alms of San Lorenzo Giustiniani and anto-
nio Bellucci’s Vow of Doge Nicolò Contarini to the Blessed Lorenzo Giusti
niani for the Cessation of the Plague, both located in the presbytery of the
cathedral of San Pietro in Castello, are linked to the public celebrations of
Venice’s first patriarch. Canvases of impressive breadth, both were exe-
cuted in 1691 following Giustiniani’s canonization, and they constituted
the completion of the great chapel dedicated to the new saintly protector
of the republic’s destiny.
earning the esteem of the prince of the roman academy of St. Luke,
Carlo Maratta, Gregorio Lazzarini (Venice, 1655–Villabona di rovigo, 1732)
took part in the move towards a “normalization” of Baroque hyperbole
through a perfection in disegno, in contrast or at least superior to the
“color” of the Venetian school.35 His easel production was sought after
both in italy and abroad for the originality of his compositions, as in his
Alms, where the artist chose to insert his own portrait among the crowd
observing the saint who, with a magnanimous gesture, gratifies the needy.36
33 antoine-Joseph Dézallier d’argenville, Abrégé de la vie des plus fameaux peintres avec
leurs portraits gravés, 4 vols (Paris, 1762), 1:235.
34 Massimo Favilla and ruggero rugolo, “Dorigny e Venezia. Da Ca’ tron a Ca’ Zenobio
e ritorno,” in G. and P. Marini, eds., Louis Dorigny 1654–1742. Un pittore della corte francese
a Verona, catalogo della mostra, Verona, Museo di Castelvecchio, 28 giugno–2 novembre
2003 (Venice, 2003), 44–50.
35 Mauro Lucco, “Lazzarini Gregorio,” in Lucco, ed., La pittura nel Veneto, 2:841.
36 Vincenzo da Canal, Vita di Gregorio Lazzarini (Venice, 1809), p. XLiii.