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Jacob Burckhardt, in 1860, described the state as a ³work of art´. Discuss

this with reference to Gritti¶s and Sansovino¶s m
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It is not difficult to see why Jacob Burckhardt would have been moved to

call Venice a work of art, the city¶s written and pictorial legacy supplies

the modern historian with fervent, adoring and even critical accou nts of

the it¶s visual qualities, its governmental system and its inhabitants. In

1364 humanist scholar Petrarch called her the ³home of liberty, peace and

justice´1 yet in the nineteenth century D.H Lawrence called her

³abhorrent, green and slippery.´2 Whether full of praise or critical, Venice

has seldom been described without bold and imaginative phrases .

The very nature of a ³work of art´ is that it is contrived, created from a

plan with intent and purpose, to provide aesthetic visual or sensual

pleasure. The state as a work of art may be interpreted in multiple ways,

visually, conceptually and in the creative workings of its political system.

I should like to contrast the artificial with the organic by observing how

scholars such as Deborah Howard have also likened Venice to the

workings of a biological organism, a dolphin3. Her understanding of this

 


 
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analogy is based around the topographical shape of Venice. Additionally,

one might expand this reference to explore how Venice, similar to the

dolphin, can be conceptualised as the opposite to a work of art; an

organic being, un-contrived and a product of natural developments over

the course of time. At the heart of this theory lies Hegelian philosophy of

the X  
, which sees ³architecture reflecting the spirit of the age´ 4 in

an evolving cultural movement that developed spiritually and manifested

itself in all aspects of civilisation.

Fig.1

The architectural touches which Jacopo Sansovino (1486-1570) brought

to Venice involve far too many buildings to mention all of them in this

essay; over the course of forty years in Venice he secured the permanent

post of m, the first architect to the Procurators of St. Mark¶s,

renovating several of the buildings in the area as well as com missions

across the city for individual citizens and the


of Venice. In order

 
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to strengthen my argument I will limit my discussion to certain key

features of the Library, the Zecca (Mint) and the Piazzetta itself.

The commissions given to Sansovino as m, begun under Doge Gritti,

conform by their nature with what Michael Baxandall indentified as the

experience of the fifteenth century painter whose work is ³the deposit of a

social relationship´ 5. This was a fairly prosperous relationship in

Sansovino¶s case, for he was known to have been on very good terms

with Doge Gritti and a number of the patriciate. Equating to Baxandall¶s

description, the procurators of Saint Marks were the patrons and

Sansovino the artist, the culminating relationship is one of the ways in

which we might understand Sansovino and Doge Gritti¶s urban

renovations to contribute to Venice as a ³work of art´ in the visual sense.

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ne of Sansovino¶s first tasks was to clear the stalls, latrines, gamblers,

money changers, bakers and butchers which cluttered the area of the

Piazzetta at the base of the two columns in the city¶s main political centre

opposite the Doges Palace (fig.2). Though they were ³eyesores´ 6 they

were not inefficiently positioned for a trading city; the Piazzetta was the

entrance for foreign visitors to the city who needed the money changing

facilities and use of the hostelries. However these businesses visible on

arrival to Venice certainly did not uphold the values the state would have

wished to emulate. Deborah Howard writes fluently about the artifice and

skill involved in Sansovino¶s part for not only removing these sellers but

housing them elsewhere and creating space for shops in premise s on the

Piazza so his patrons, the Procurators of St. Marks could still receive the

rents of the shopkeepers. The cleansing of the Piazzetta is just one of the

ways in which Venice, as a work of art was made to look more beautiful

from an aesthetic point of view as well as the ideology behind the need to

rid the clutter of the commercial world from the political space.

There appears to be a gendering of space included and considered in

Sansovino¶s Venetian architecture for the Piazzetta as well as the

commercial and political divide which might be used to consider the state

as a work of art in the nature of these purposeful and deliberately

constructed separations. If one applies what Patricia Fortini Brown

 
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describes as a ³period eye´ 7 to paintings such as Gentile Bellini¶s

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possible to obtain a glimpse of how Venetians in the fifteenth and

sixteenth centuries understood the function of spaces. In Bellini¶s

painting, society is divided within its own sections of the Piazza; women

peer down from the upper storeys of the buildings whilst the men are

involved in the state procession, occupying segments in the square below.

Interestingly this male and female division between upper and lower

levels in buildings of San Marco is echoed in the position of the feminoni

on the Library designed by Sansovino, and the herms on his Zecca

analysed by Eugene J. Johnson. The Feminoni who ³welcome us to Library

suggest the feminine gender of the Ionic order of the piano nobile´8

These Ionic columns of the Library¶s upper storey continue around the

corner into the Piazza at the same height where Gentile¶s women reside

above the men below. The ground floor of the Zecca next to the Library is

a correspondingly male sphere, demonstrated by the masculine herms

and the mixture of rustic and Doric orders of the doorway. This gendered

division serves as yet another example of the craft involved in the direct

line from government authority working through the architecture,

designed by Sansovino.

 


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Fig.3

Though Deborah Howard tells us that Sansovino did not invent the

commercial and political split between the Rialto and Saint Marks, the

clearing of stalls from the Piazzet ta solidified the zoning of the two areas9.

It is as if the head and heart of her dolphin analogy were growing and

developing. This commercial and political division was ³an ancient

tradition in Italian urban planning, given a new life by Quattrocento

architectural theorists such as Alberti and Filarete´.10 Howard¶s words,

³new life´ echo the exact translation of the word Renaisance which is ³re-

birth´, this further exemplifies the theory that changes in the state of

Venice evolved with the spirit of the times. This maturing attitude is

recorded in the actions of Doge Andrea Gritti who in 1525 attempted to

eliminate the ³undecorous´ 11 pig chase of  m

. This explains ³a

new consciousness of the role of civic space in Venice, and marks the

 

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start of the sixteenth century¶s (...) programme to ennoble the city

centre.´12

Sansovino was to provide the desired architectural framework for Gritti¶s

move towards a more civilised and less medieval and barbaric society. It

is therefore possible to conceptualise this solidification of zoning and

order as a more organic, development from cluttered medieval dwellings

towards a rational, ³renaissance´ appropriation of space. Delorinzi calls

the Venetian Renaissance ³autochthonous´ 13 affirming that in a similar

thread of thought to the Zeitgeist theory, Venetian architecture had a life

and language of its own in the imagination of those who wrote about it.

ne must remember the political climate in which Sansovino was working,

Venice was economically secure in the 1530s and Sansovino¶s

commissions affirm the confidence of the affluent republic at the time.

However Venice did not remain so over the course of his career due to

conflict with the Turks and the wars of the League of Cambrai. The sack

of Rome in 1527 had weakened its legacy and caused the exodus of some

of Rome¶s most influential men such as Jacopo Sansovino himself and the

writer Aretino, both of whom Venice appropriated14. The intellectual

capabilities of these artists, along with the architecture, literature and art

they produced enabled Venice to stake its claim as the ³new Rome´.

 

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Sansovino brought with him the bold ³legacies of Bramante´15 the

celebrated Roman architect and this style was characterised by ³classical

obelisks and friezes rich with  framed by Doric and Ionic capitals´.16

This 
 style, Tafuri writes, contained a ³spirit of calculation´ 17 and

it is likely that the intelligence of the classical style which Sansovino and

Gritti favoured 18 contributes to Burckhardt¶s implication that the state was

a contrived work of art, in terms of the construction of the visual

assimilation with Rome and the stylistic conventions which Sansovino

adhered to.

It is in this Roman, monumental style that Sansovino designed the library

to which he would devote his life (Fig.4). Tafuri tells us it is ³not possible

to imagine the direction in which the architectural history of the

Serenissima might have moved without the contribution of a protagonist

of the Roman ferment like Sansovino.´19

It seems likely however that the influence of Roman architecture was a

natural progression being made all over Italy as Florence competed with

Rome, Milan and Naples and certain Roman artists relocated elsewhere

after 1527 and the spread of classical proportions marked the spirit of the

age or Zeitgeist.

 
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Sansovino began implementing his designs for the Library in 1537. The

structure consists of 21 windows in bays framed by Ionic columns above

the Doric order on the ground floor. Sansovino died in 1570 without

seeing its completion but the Library continued to enforce the admired

Ancient Roman qualities of order and solidarity and used them to uphold

Venice.

Fig.4

The Library exemplifies how Sansovino was able to display his knowledge

and ingenuity through the art of subtlety. Not only did he solve the

problematic continuation of the Doric frieze around the corner of the

Library where the Piazzetta meets the Piazza but his use of classical

elements, still a novelty in Venice, were ³the start of an architectural

revolution.´20 However they were not so out of place as to be considered

indecorous. In 1537 Aretino his contemporary wrote, ³Who is not

 

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overwhelmed on seeing the carved Doric order with the Ionic above,

together with the appropriate decoration...?´ 21

Though visually Sansovino¶s Library was created for aesthetic beauty as

well as to serve its civic purpose, there is also scope with which to view

his creation as a natural and organic response to the restrictive terrain, as

opposed to Burckhardt¶s view of Venice as a contrived work of art.

However in his quest for visual order he compromised the structural

integrity of the building. Contemporary architectural writer Serlio in 1537

noted ³in Venice it is custom to build in a way which is different from that

of the other cities in Italy´22. Most Venetian houses and palaces were built

with wood which may expand and contract with the swelling of the waters

in the city where stone cannot. In 1545 a vault in the first bay

in

the library collapsed due to the inflexibility of the stone ceiling. Sansovino

claimed gunfire from a nearby ship together with the frost had weakened

the stone vault. 23 Sansovino was jailed briefly, his pay was frozen and he

was ordered to repair the damages at his own cost, a venture which

practically bankrupted him and the vault was re-worked with wooden

beams. Here is one incident where the plan of the artist could not be

realised and the construction of Burckhardt¶s Venice as a work of art

stumbled in its creation. The end result of Sansovino¶s contribution to the

state of Venice was as much subject to the demands of the terrain than

 

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the master plan he had mapped out. It is as if the city imposed itself on

the structures as a living being, as opposed to a flat land mass available

to be moulded and made into an exact replica of Rome. Perhaps this is

better, had he not substituted certain Roman elements such as vaults for

the traditional Venetian beamed ceilings, Venice might have lost

something of its character and identity it had maintai ned for so long.

To further analyse the interrelationships between the buildings which

Sansovino designed or embellished for the Piazzetta, one needs to

understand this complex as a whole and consider how the visual

decorations symbolically link these buildings and their function,

enlightening us as to how the Venetian state functioned and wished to be

seen. We can then interpret these as the result of a brilliantly complex

plan, or the more natural culmination of a response to needs and acti ons

of a developing society which infused meaning into everything around it.

Integral to this analysis of the Venetian state and its architecture was the

use of the 

  of the library by the patricians to observe the

goings on in the Piazzetta below. Sansovino¶s upper storey provided a

structure of bays like theatre boxes opposite the Doges Palace, the

balcony of which also would have been lined with noble spectators. From

this elevated position they could watch daily events, public celebrations

and importantly, executions. Johnson remarks that ³such public



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performances of justice were grand spectacles´ 24 and he makes the useful

observation that the layout of the Piazzetta functioned in a similar way to

that of a theatre space, in terms of its design and visual elements such as

the balconies in which the procurators stood, framed by grand Ionic

columns, these box-like constructions in fact pre-date theatre boxes in

Venice. Johnson also mentions that ³during the sixteenth century the

Venetian government created one of the greatest public spaces in

Europe,´25 as if the the Piazzetta itself were the work of art created by the

state though their main architect. If the Piazzetta is a theatre, then the

festivals and judicial activities below make the citizens of Venice the

actors. The Venetian state then is not only a work of art, but is engaged

in its own particular forms of performance art- those political examples of

justice and festivals. Sansovino¶s contribution was to create a space for

this performance art of the state.

The urban renovations served to created relationships of power between

architecture of the state. The imposing herms on Zecca characterise the

male form and strength, in Johnson¶s analysis of the Venetian Mint they

can stand for many things, including the authority of Rome and it is very

likely Sansovino had seen Michelangelo¶s herms on the tomb of Julius II

dating from 1505 26. Though Johnson recognises they point to Venus who

is synonymous with Venice in Venetian artistic dialogue, he fails to make

 
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the connection that if the herms, as Rome, point to Venus instead of

simply asserting themselves, then by way of their gesture Venice is being

celebrated through Rome; a bold claim but not an unlikely one, given

Venice¶s prosperity in that decade.

Sansovino succeeded in charging his civic monuments with the chief

virtue of the Republic Justice, in order that they should correspond not

only with each other but with the political ideals of the state. Justice was

depicted in her female form in the entablatures carried by the herms on

the Zecca, the Loggetta and the feminoni of the Library who both frame

and point to her across the Piazzetta in a motif on the Ducal Palace. It is

therefore fitting that Justice was also played out in the middle of all of

these in the Piazzetta when public examples were made of criminals. Just

like a work of art, each structure of the Piazzetta was infused with an

overriding theme which contributed to its myth as the Serenissima.

According to Plato¶s philosophy of the Republic, all art is merely the

representation of the thing it wishes to depict 27. The reference to Justice

upon each building was then brilliantly surpassed by the practise of it in

the centre of Piazzetta, turning the Venetian state into divine creators.

It is possible to see that the state was indeed an artful construction, not

only a place of beauty but one where a century of uninterrupted visual

and cultural frameworks integral to the identity of the republic, such as

 

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histories and important ideological virtues. These had been assimilated

into every aspect of Venetian culture, buildin g a complex weave of

meaning in such a way that which we might compare this growth to the

process of evolution. Gritti and Sansovino¶s urban renovations contributed

to Venice as an artificial construct by re-enforcing the myths Venice

wished to create, such as the parallels with Rome and expression of

Justice. However the culminating cleanliness, brilliance and complexity

achieved in Venice speak more of a development in evolutionary maturity .

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m, 2nd

ed, xford, 1988

Brown, Patricia Fortini. m
 




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 , London, 1997

Brown, Patricia Fortini. ³Painting and History in Renaissance Venice´, m

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m, Vol.7, 1984, pp.216-294

Burckhardt, Jacob and Murray, Peter (ed.). The Architecture of the Italian

Renaissance, 2 nd ed., Chicago, 1987

Burckhardt, Jacob, translated by Middlemore, S G C.  




 



 
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, 3rd ed., London, 2004

Conway, Hazel and Roenisch, Rowan. $
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m m #



m
m m 
m m m % 2nd ed. xon, 2005

Chambers, D and Pullman, Brian (ed.). !
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m"

m

()*+,(-.+%Toronto, 2001.

Da Mosto%Francesco. m


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 , London, 2007|

Delorenzi, Paolo.  & 

u %Venice, 2010

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Johnson, Eugene J. ³Jacopo Sansovino, Giacomo Torelli and the

Theatricality of the Piazzetta in Venice´, m
  

m m"
m

, Vol.59, No.4, 2000, pp.436-453

Johnson, Eugene J. ³Portal of Empire and Wealth: Jacopo Sansovino¶s

Entrance to the Venetian Mint´,  m/ 
, Vol. 86, No.3, 2004,

pp.430-458

Howard, Deborah.  


#m m 
um
 





 !
 , New Haven and London, 1975

Howard, Deborah. ³Venice as a Dolphin: Further Investigations into

Jacopo de¶Barbari¶s View´, m 

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m , Veol.18, No.35, 1997,

pp.101-111

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m

, Vol. 57, No. 2, 1998, pp.182-197

Kaplan, Paul H. D. ³Untitled Review´ of Patricia Fortini Brown, !



0mm u


  m , New Haven and London, in




 1m m, Vol. 43, No. 3, 1990, pp.614-616

Lawrence, D.H.  '   u '

&"2m
 , Hertfordshire, 1994

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Martineau, J and Hope, C (ed.).  3


!
 (*++,(-++, London,

1983

MacKenney, Richard. ³Public and Private in Renaissance Venice ´,




 
, 1998, Vol.12, No.1, pp.109-130

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, Vol. 13,

No. 3, 1935, pp. 367-375

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Venice´, ' m
"

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m!
 , London, 1983

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 m m 
 



 , New Haven and London,

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m

, Middlesex, 1965




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Pictures

Fig.1 Jacopo de Barbari¶s ! 2!
 , 1500. Image at:

http://www.tin.it/veniva/venetie/map/map.htm

Fig.2 The Piazzetta, Venice. Image at : www.luirig.altervista.org

Fig.3 Gentile Bellini¶s um


 m m


u
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1496. Image at: http://en.wikipedia.org

Fig.4 The Library of the Piazzetta in Venice. Image at: www.potpourri-

variety.blogspot.com

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