Artibus et Historiae no. 81 (XLI)
2020, ISSN 0391-9064Up
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MASSIMO FAVILLA and RUGGERO RUGOLO - Ideology on the Ceiling: Giambattista Tiepolo for the Palaces of the Corner, Manin and Mocenigo (pp. 307–327)
The authors analyze the decorations of the ceilings made by Giambattista Tiepolo in the residences of three noble Venetian families.
In the first case they enter the Corner Palace in San Polo, where the painter worked for several years, in particular in the first half of the 1740s, when he painted the canvas of the ceiling of the so-called Cabinet of Mirrors. It depicts the Allegory of Marital Concordia, which, together with the canvases on the walls of the room, represents the complex ideology of one of the oldest, proudest and most powerful families in the history of the Venetian Republic.
On the contrary, for the Manins, who became part of the aristocracy of Venice only in 1651 after a large donation to the State, Tiepolo painted a ceiling in which the fundamental role of wealth in order to reach the nobility was highlighted, and at the same time it is affirmed that richness must be followed by generosity to be confirmed (Scrooge docet!).
The Mocenigo family was certainly older than the Manins, although much less than the Corners. For a ceiling of the Mocenigo Palace in San Samuele, Tiepolo painted a canvas that intended to emphasize the fundamental value of the aristocratic origin for the continuity and greatness of the Mocenigo name.