Venice haa 151v Spring 2016

J. Connors 27 March 2016

Façade spolia, Hercules reliefs, St. Mark cycle up to the Porta di S. Alippio.

Tetrarchs, Pilastri acritani (St. Polyeuktos in Constantinople). Carmagnola head. Interior: early mosaics in chapels of St. Peter and St. Clement. Pala d’oro. Sansovino bronze door to the sacristy (veiled head of the grieving Virgin). Sea floor of Greek marble slabs. Porta saracenesca (double curves and mosaic) to the Treasury, where everyone chose a favorite object, often of glass remounted in Byzantine enamel. Baptistery (entered a pilgrims during the Exceptional Holy Year of 2016): Sansovino font, late Byzantine-style mosaics, altar as giant slab of stone. Glimpses from the Baptistery and from the portico into the Cappella Zen with bronze altar statues and bronze statue of the gisant Cardinal Zen. Portico mosaics: Days of Creation with Adam and Eve, Noah and the Flood, Joseph and his Brothers.

Museum: 4 horses, mosaic fragments, Paolo Veneziano’s pala feriale used to cover the Pala d’Oro on non feast days with scenes of the cycle of St. Mark.

South façade with central window by the Delle Massegne 1400

West façade on Piazzetta with Porta della Carta and Justice Roundel. Three corners: Grape, Fig, Justice, with archangels above: Raphael, Michael, Gabriel. Justice Roundel. Porta della Carta with Doge Francesco Foscari and lion in high relief, and Justice enthroned on high. Virtues: Prudence, Fortitude, Temperance, Charity.
Palazzo Ducale Courtyard

Scala dei Giganti, with Hypnerotomachia-like emblematic decorations, small prison underneath. Sansovino: Neptune and Mars. Statue of Francesco Maria I Duke of Urbino. Classical statues inserted into the Arco dei Foscari.

Scala d’oro to top floor. Armory. Main rooms on piano nobile in sequence: Sala delle Quattro Porte (four Palladio doors with colored marble columns, Reception of Henri III of France in Venice). Antichamber with Veronese’s Rape of Europa (narrative sequence, bull licks Europa’s foot, Tintoretto divinities. Collegio. Senato. Back through the Sala dei 4 Porte to the Council of Ten rooms. Stanza della Bussola. Corridor and room with Guariento fresco fragments. Corridor glassed off with three Antonio Rizzo sculptures black and awaiting restoration: Mars, Adam, Eve. Gran Consiglio. Sala dello Scrutinio. Triumphal arch. Bridge of Signs and New Prisons across the canal.

Body of John the Baptist’s father Zachary. Façade with Codussi upper stories. Interior with ambulatory and tall bases for the columns. Bellini San Zaccaria altarpiece on the left wall. Old church: vault with 1442 frescoes by Andrea del Castagno. Gothic altarpieces: Alvise Vivarini and Giovanni d’Alemagna. Paolo Veneziano predella under main altarpiece. Flooded crypt.

Still Gothic façade c. 1460s. Cima da Conegliano: Baptism of Christ in the Jordan. St. Helena and the True Cross.

Gateway: 1460 date, Greek marble columns and capitals. Lions with Runic inscriptions.

Carpaccio cycle: St. George and the Dragon, Vision of St. Augustine in his Study.

Salmagher ivory casket showing Old St. Peter’s. Archeological museum with Grimani sculptures. Antonello da Messina Pietà with unfinished or ruined figures. Bellini Madonnas, Crucifixion.

Reading room with 27 ceiling roundels by 9 artists, especially 3 by Veronese. Prophets in fictive niches along the walls, principally by Tintoretto. Vestibule converted by Scamozzi into an antique display with Titian Wisdom in the vault.

Façade with embedded fragments from the older Zen palace. Courtyard with wellhead returned from Paris. Franchetti memorial as a broken porphyry column set into a floor imitating that of San Marco. Franchetti painting collection.

Codussi Greek cross design. Bellini: Sacra Conversazione with St. Jerome, St. Christopher, St. Louis of Toulouse. Tullio Lombardo: Coronation of the Virgin relief altarpiece.

S. Maria dell’Assunta. Medieval relief of Time with Winged Feet plus Acidia. Apse mosaic: Virgin above, Apostles below. Last Judgment on inner façade. Seven vices:

superbia, lussuria, gluttony, rage (black figures in black water), jealousy (serpentelli coming out of their eyes). S. Fosca: Greek cross plan on columns with squinches. Throne of Atilla. Museum with Goth’s iron spearhead.
Murano

San Pietro Martire by Bellini: Presentation of the Doge to the Virgin with saints. Santa Maria Assunta and San Donato: Romanesque brickwork of the apse. Floor in the style of San Marco. Museo del Vetro (each student chose a favorite peace). Roman vases and glass. Barovier goblet in blue glass with painting of the Fountain of Youth. Exhibit at the end with exemplars of the history of glass on display unprotected.

Façade with columns in antis and hipped roof visible from across the canal. Upper part of façade matches side buttresses. Nave based on rooms in Roman baths. Tri-conch chancel under the dome: wall apse + 4 columns under semidome + wall apse. Sacristy with wax heads of the famous Capuchin martyrs under glass.

Façade finished c. 1600. Tall pedestals for columns and ducal tombs. Blessing Hand in gilt metal letters of the alphabet suspended under the dome. St. Stephen’s shrine in the left transept, framed by 2 pairs of Greek marble columns. Tintoretto Last Supper on the right side of the chancel.

Basilica and piazza. with Loggia del Capitaniato. Two-bay fragment of Palazzo Barbaran. Cathedral with ‘400 façade. Centro Palladio in Palazzo Barbaran da Porto: Jefferson exhibition. Santa Corona with Bellini Baptism in the Jordan commissioned by a patron who had gone to Jerusalem. Elephant and Obelisk tomb at the side door. Teatro Olimpico with elliptical seating and scenae frons by Palladio plus seven perspectival streets by Scamozzi. Palazzo Chiericati. Villa Rotonda seen from the outside. Villa Valmarana ai Nani with frescoes by Giambattista and Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo.

Apse with tall Gothic windows. Campanile. Façade facing the canal. Interior: Canova Tomb on left side of nave, Titian monument on right side of nave. Giovanni Bellini San Vincenzo Ferrer triptych in Pisani Chapel off right transept. Monuments of soldiers working for the Venetian imperial expansion of the quattrocento: Savelli equestrian monument (in wood, high up), Pisani tomb. Tomb of Beato Pacifico, the Franciscan who guided the construction of the church. Doge Foscari tomb on right side of chancel, last Gothic ducal tomb. Doge Niccolo Tron tomb on left side of chancel, one of the first and most imposing Renaissance tombs (“glorious although brief” dogate of 2 years in his old age).

Apse with still taller gothic windows. Cemetery behind the apse with a few tombs; site of the famous Oratorio di Sant’Orsula, home of the Carpaccio canvases now in the Accademia. Façade with Gothic/Renaissance door as fragment of an ambitious façade left unfinished. Tomb of Doges Tiepolo, lifted up on the left side of the façade but formerly standing in the Campo Santo in front of the church. Tomb of Doge Mocenigo on the inner façade left side: soldiers, scenes of sieges.

Tomb of Doge Vendramin in left chancel by Tullio Lombardo (Adam and Eve removed because nude, Adam now in MMA though smashed in a fall ca. 2002).

Scuola di San Marco: large room as medical museum, smaller albergo with photographic reproductions of the paintings once decorating it, now scattered between the Accademia and other museums; especially St. Mark Preaching in Alexandria, with exotic crowds and a an eastern version of a church like St. Mark’s in the background, now in Brera in Milan. Double ramp staircase by Mauro Codussi. Façade with Lombardo perspectival sculptures on the lower levels, taken over by Codussi with arches on the top level.

Equestrian bronze of Colleoni the condottiere, by Verrocchio, cast by Leopardi, on a high marble base; we compare the level of detail with the ancient horses of San Marco.

Marble well-head by Sansovino in the campo, formerly in Palazzo Corner Ca’ Grande.

Formerly dedicated to St. Christopher, but the name comes from a miraculous sculpture of the Madonna found in a nearby garden. Tintoretto: Golden Calf, Last Judgment as Deluge. Tintoretto tomb and 19^th c. monument. Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple with a girl Virgin rivaling Titian’s Virgin in the Carità. Façade with one of the last Gothic portals, just prior to the portal of SS. Giovanni e Paolo and the Arsenal Gateway.