Photo 1: The church of San Vincenzo (late 1300s), patron saint of the city, incorporated into the subsequent Palazzo del Monte di Pietà. (The Monte di Pietà was the place where they brought their possessions as a pledge to have money in exchange, a last resort for the sustenance of those who could own something, obviously you had to own something, so the really poor did not have access to it).
Today I will tell you about my city. It is not really a physical journey, but a journey through time that I made while visiting the exhibition in the Palladian Basilica on the art of 1500 in Vicenza: “The Renaissance Factory” this is the title of the exhibition. For friends who do not know it, Vicenza is a UNESCO World Heritage Site for the villas and palaces built in the Renaissance by Andrea Palladio. But the question he tries to answer is: how did it become such an important city? What are the merits and what are the characters that have influenced the path of the city to become what we admire today? Obviously we were in the Italian Renaissance, where the arts flourished in every corner of the Bel Paese. But to make art flourish, it took the lords to finance the works and the artists to create them. And here some patrons also appeared in Vicenza, sometimes visionaries, but certainly influential in the choices of the rulers of the time, today we would call them influencers. Vicenza has never had a Lordship like Padua, Treviso, Verona, it was subjected to Venice and its laws, but it had a great entrepreneurial ability especially in silk processing, and in other sectors such as goldsmithing, a tradition that continues today. It should be remembered that in the years of the second post-war period, practically a good part of the Vicenza population was engaged in the orificeria and as evidence of this, one of the most important world fairs in the goldsmith sector takes place every year in Vicenza.
Photo 2: Interior of the Loggias built by Palladio to complete and support the Palazzo della Reason with the Hall of the Hundred inside, where the exhibition is hosted (around 1450)
Photo 3: The lion of San Marco, symbol of Venice, in the Salone dei Cento. Here justice was administered.
Photo 4: Note the ceiling, made of wood and copper, in the shape of an overturned ship.
Going through this exhibition led me to meet the names of many people after whom the streets and squares of my city are named, but sometimes they are just names with a hint of their profession: painter, sculptor, architect, scholar, bishop. “That’s who he was !!” How many times did I think about it yesterday inside of me, sometimes confessing to myself a profound ignorance of facts and episodes that everyone should know about their city. Let’s not exaggerate, I’m not saying I don’t know anything, but some episodes are quite difficult to study at school. Like that of the arrival of Bishop Ridolfi in the early 1500s, a relative of the Medici of Florence. Palladio and others on the idea of Giangiorgio Trissino, transformed Vicenza into a large film set, building false facades on the main street of the city, hiding ancient buildings, and decorating the street with neoclassical statues. Many of these facades were built later in the years, thus building what is now called Corso Palladio, the main street of Vicenza, the ancient Roman decumanus.
Photo 5: The anointing of David by Paolo Veronese, kept at the Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien
Photo 6: Ascent to Calvary, Jacopo Bassano, The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
Photo 7: Tommaso Rangone, Guardian Grande of the Scuola Grande di San Marco, Bronze bust and clay preparatory by Alessandro Vittoria
The artists who most contributed to the cultural growth of Vicenza were: Andrea Palladio, supreme architect. He was inspired by the classical forms of ancient Rome. It is thanks to his works that Vicenza has been included in the UNESCO World Heritage List. The painters Paolo Veronese and Jacopo Bassano, the sculptor Alessandro Vittoria. All four were linked by friendship and sometimes collaborated with each other for the realization of some works. It is interesting to understand how much the works were worth at the time of their realization. Back then there were a lot of coins in circulation and the authors of the show came up with a fun, but brilliant way to understand better. They turned purchase values into pigs. Yes, you got it right, the medium-sized pig had a certain value in the 1500s and it quickly simplifies the calculation and makes it clearer, with comparisons even on what the salary or wages of ordinary people were like a worker or a waitress.
Photo 8: The cost of living and annual wages in 1500 compared to the cost of a medium-sized pig.
Photo 9: The cost of living and annual wages in 1500 compared to the cost of a medium-sized pig.
Photo 10: The crucifix in gold and rock crystal by valerio belli, very precious then and also today.
Obviously now some are priceless paintings that are exhibited in the most prestigious galleries in the world, but at the time the painters were earning very little compared to what one might think, it was the most poorly paid art. The architect Palladio was a little better, but he never managed to buy a house of his own, he lived for rent, in a modest house at the bottom of the current Corso Palladio, let’s say that he lived almost on the outskirts. Sculptors were a little bit better, like Vittoria, but they had odd jobs. The highest paid ever, the goldsmith Valerio Belli for his skill in working with rock crystal and in goldsmithing. A single work on display concerning a crucifix with its medallions made for Pope Clement VII.
Photo 11: Adoration of the Magi by Jacopo Bassano, the Barber Institut Birmingham
Photo 12: Roman votive medallion, later used as an architectural frieze. The antiques were worth a lot of pigs!
Photo 13: Paolo Veronese innovates the family portrait with solutions and poses never seen before, much more familiar and less formal. Portrait of Livia Porto Thiene and her daughter Deidamia. The Walter Arts Museum, Baltimore
The conclusion takes us to the Olympic theater, the dream come true of Trissino and his companions. Designed by Andrea Palladio who never saw the finished work since he died shortly after the start of the works. The work was completed by Vincenzo Scamozzi (I attended the Middle School named after him), who will also create the wooden scenography of the streets of Thebes for the first performance, the Oedipus Re. These sets have existed since 1585 and are not never removed, they have become the unmistakable face of the Olympic Theater, the oldest covered theater in the world. But of Vincenzo Scamozzi few remember his life. We could say that he was the most unfortunate architect in history. Most likely, if Palladio had not been born, he would now be remembered as one of the greatest architects ever to exist. He built many palaces and villas and practically spread Palladian thought throughout the world with a treatise that became the reference text for many architects.
Photo 15: The Olympic theater, designed by Palladio, the oldest covered theater in the world (1585) with the scenography, an icon of the theater itself, created by Vincenzo Scamozzi, a cultured pupil, also an opponent of Palladio himself, who however continued and spread also by expanding the Palladio’s work and thought. He will never be considered what he was, a great architect, perhaps the best of all if it hadn’t been for Palladio with his reputation that could not be overshadowed in any way.
@Giu_DiB @ErmesT @PattyBlack @LuigiZ @helga19 @TravellerG @AdamGT @DeniGu