deborah - venice as a dolphin

Venice as a Dolphin: Further Investigations into Jacopo de' Barbari's ViewAuthor(s): Deborah HowardSource: Artibus et Historiae, Vol. 18, No. 35 (1997), pp. 101-111Published by: IRSA s.c.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1483541 .

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DEBORAH HOWARD

Venice as a Dolphin: Further investigations into Jacopo de' Barbari's View

Introduction

For historians of Venetian Renaissance architecture Jacopo de' Barbari's prodigious bird's-eye view map of Venice, dated 1500, is an essential resource-a visual document of such accuracy and

completeness that its evidence cannot be ignored.1 [Fig. 1] It

emerges from the city at a time when a fascination with the "reality" of Venetian life, down to its finest detail, is revealed in a wealth of texts, both verbal and visual: diaries, pilgrim chronicles, narrative

paintings for the Scuole, even inventories. As Patricia Fortini Brown has shown, this apparently undiscriminating realism could make bold and abstract ideas such as religious miracles and political pro- paganda completely believable.2 The "eye-witness style", as she describes it, depends on the easy identification of the sites depicted, through the recognition of the finest detail, such as the mosaics on the facade of San Marco in Gentile Bellini's Miracle of the True Cross in Piazza San Marco (1496). Such realism induces the spectator to overlook the artful manipulation of the space and adjustments to the

layout of the framing buildings, that serve to reinforce the ideological content.

This article will attempt to show that the use of such realism was more calculated and less naive than is often suggested. It was the

exceptional juxtaposition, in late 15th-century Venice, of map-mak-

ing skills and perspective techniques, that enabled Jacopo de' Barbari's celebrated map not only to achieve the remarkable fidelity for which it is rightly admired (and still used by historians today), but also to manipulate the image to convey a particular iconographic idea. So powerful was the concetto that it became fixed in the Venetian consciousness and even influenced subsequent urban

planning decisions.

The enterprise

What little is known of the circumstances of the commission derives from the petition to the Venetian Senate submitted on 30 October 1500 by the German merchant Anton Kolb, requesting copyright privileges for the map.3 The application is successful, and Kolb is granted an tax-free export licence and protection against counterfeit for 4 years, a fact noted by Sanudo in his diary on the same day.4

The petition stresses the difficulty of the exercise and the three-year duration of its production. The artist is not named, but the attribution to Jacopo de' Barbari is generally accepted, on the basis of similarities to other examples of his work.5 The names of Kolb and Barbari are subsequently associated together again in 1504, regard-

101



DEBORAH HOWARD

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1) Jacopo de' Barbari, ,<Bird's-eye-view map of Venice,>, 1500. Woodcut on six blocks, first state. Total dimensions when sheets are matched: 1.327 x 2.811m. (London, British Musuem, reproduced by courtesy of the Trustees).

ing unspecified services to the Emperor Maximilian.6 Kolb's admira- tion for Jacopo is attested by DOrer's famous letter of 1506 from Venice, recording that "Anton Kolb swears an oath that no better

painter lives on earth than Jacob."7 Kolb's primary role was probably that of financial sponsor. His

name appears among the merchants living at the newly rebuilt Fondaco dei Tedeschi, both in 1508 and again in 1515.8 His contacts with publishing circles in Venice are well documented. In 1499, for

example he settled accounts with Koberger for a consignment of 34

copies of Schedel's celebrated Weltchronik (the "Nuremberg Chronicle").9

The Market

Since this article will focus on the ideological intention underly- ing the project, it is important to attempt to define the market, and thus the intended audience for Barbari's map. As befits such a cos-

mopolitan city as Venice, the audience was perceived as an interational one. The interational market is confirmed by the request for

duty-free export, and one must assume that copies of the map stored in wooden crates were carried northwards across the Brenner Pass by wagon, like other Venetian prints and books, as Febvre

suggests.10 On the other hand, the fact that as many as five of the dozen

surviving impressions of the first state are still in Venice confirms that the work appealed to Venetian purchasers as well as foreigners.11 Although the flattery expressed in Kolb's petition ("principalmente ad fama de questa excelsa cita de Venetia quella habia facto") cannot be taken at face value, Landau & Parshall are probably correct that such a major surveying exercise could not have been undertaken without the cooperation of the Republic.12

The cost of three ducats made the map a luxury item, destined for serious collectors, while its huge size (almost 4 square metres) required a large space if it were to be viewed rather than stored in a

print chest.13 The fact that the matching of the sheets was so care-

102

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VENICE AS A DOLPHIN: FURTHER INVESTIGATIONS INTO JACOPO DE' BARBARI'S VIEW

fully achieved, and the existence of a border around the perimeter sheets, imply that a composite display was intended. Landau and Parshall's suggestion that large scale multi-block woodcuts were mounted on linen to be hung on the wall is a convincing one.14 The Venetian nobility are known to have enjoyed maps as wall decora-

tion, although the only record of any Venetian patrician owning works by Barbari is Michiel's comment in 1521 that "opere de lacomo de Barbarino veneziano, che and6 in Alemagna e Borgogna" were to be seen in Cardinal Grimani's collection.15 Dora Thornton

pointed out that Sanudo's studiolo displayed a mappamondo; his

diary records that he proudly showed it off to a group of scholars in 1511.16 Chambers has suggested that Barbari's map could have been regarded as the visual accompaniment to Sabellico's description of Venice (1490);17 and it will be suggested later that it also bears a link to Sanudo's account of the city, composed in 1493.18

The execution

Pioneering research into the probable surveying techniques was carried out by Juergen Schulz, first for his Printed Plans and Panoramic Views of Venice (1970), and subsequently in his exhaus- tive and fundamental article "Jacopo de' Barbari's View of Venice:

Map-making, city views and moralized geography before the year 1500" (1978). Schulz convincingly concluded that the map was a

composite of images taken from various campanili, the positions of which had been plotted on a previously surveyed area. From each

campanile, according to Schulz's scheme, the detailed sections would be surveyed as if seen from the Campanile of San Giorgio Maggiore, which is depicted in the foreground to make this notional

viewpoint clear. The precise nature of Barbari's own role in the survey and exe-

cution is still unclear. The figures of the gods, the heads of the eight winds, and the landscape background can be closely related to other known works by Jacopo. Levenson suggests that he merely assembled the myriad of individual surveys and added the graphic "staffage" such as the figures and the foreground regatta.19 Yet Barbari's own eulogy of the painter's art, contained in his long letter to Emperor Frederick of Saxony, suggests that the more scientific

aspects of the the project corresponded closely with his own inter- ests. In this important text, datable to c. 1500-1501, he contends that

painters must be "periti ne la architetura, ala qual necessita la musi- ca e masime la philosofia per cogniosere la natura de lochi, la condi- cion de venti, la influencia del aere, la natura de arbori, la disposi- cion de sassi o loro virtude per distribuir nelli edificij, secondo quelli son posti aloriente ho ocidente al meridiano over setentrione."20 This Vitruvian agenda betrays a deep concern for the whole spectrum of his rendering of the Venetian townscape. It therefore seems likely

that the whole layout was devised by Barbar and assembled under his direction.

All scholars recognise that the production of the map must also have raised considerable logistical problems. There is still debate over whether Barbari himself was a woodcutter, or whether he sim-

ply drew the details on the woodblock to be executed by professional cutters.21 No evidence exists to confirm his own woodcutting activities, whereas we know that professional woodcutters were available in Venice to serve the growing production of illustrated books. Kristeller's suggestion that specialist woodcutters from

Nuremberg were imported to Venice for the project is still taken seri-

ously.22 The production process was also a challenging one, because of

the exceptional size of the sheets. As Kolb's petition-affirms, protection for the originality of the conception was needed "per la grandeza sua et dela Carta che mai simele non fu facta."23 To obtain six blocks of wood of such dimensions, with a suitably fine, even grain, must have been difficult in itself. Indeed, the rarity value is underlined by their survival to this day (the blocks are now on display in the Museo Correr in Venice). An even greater challenge was the supply of

paper. Each sheet is c. 70 x 100 cm in size, that is, twice the width of the paper used for imperial folios. No other paper of such dimensions is known in Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries, and Landau and Parshall believe that paper mills in the Veneto probably supplied the sheets on special commission.24 The printing process, too, must have required custom-made presses. The fact that Jacopo de' Barbari himself was already in Germany in the service of the

Emperor six months before the submission of Kolb's petition may easily be accounted for by the duration of the printing itself.25

The survey

If we are to analyse the extent of self-conscious manipulation of the image, we need to ascertain the degree of sophistication employed in the surveying exercise. In the earlier of his studies Schulz adopted Bratti's suggestion that Barbari had used an ortho-

graphic ground-plan of the city, which he then manipulated to achieve the bird's-eye view perspective.26 In his second article, Schulz explained how trigonometrical calculations, using angles or

compass bearings and known length measurements, whether a base-line or the height of a tower, could in theory have been used to plot a network of landmarks, in order to generate an accurate plan of Venice.27

In this later study, Schulz then used a plotting technique to examine the accuracy of this procedure, and came to the conclusion that the distortions were so marked that such a scientific method could not have been adopted. He therefore withdrew his suggestion that the compass had been systematically employed by Barbari,

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DEBORAH HOWARD

2a) Map of Venice as in 1500 (based on the original prepared by Juergen Schulz for his article in the Art Bulletin, 1978), rotated using computer techniques to obtain the perspective recession corresponding as closely as possible

to the viewpoint adopted by Jacopo de' Barbari.

despite the existence of known maps of the period executed in this

way, most famously, in Leonardo's map of Imola.28 Schulz identified the main areas of distortion by imposing a grid

on an accurate modem map of Venice (with areas reclaimed since 1500 not shown). He then plotted each of the intersections on this grid on to Barbari's version [Fig. 2b].29 Had Barbari's perspective been laid out systematically, the result should have been a series of

converging lines meeting at a single vanishing point above the centre of the map. In reality, the grid is approximately correct in the right half, but considerably distorted on the left. Here, compression is particularly evident at the horizontal join between the two left-hand blocks.

It is possible, too, to investigate the same issue by approaching the procedure in the same direction that Barbari might have done, rather than in the reverse. Schulz's modern map, the assumed

plan-form of Venice in 1500, can be scanned on to a computer screen. Using CAD techniques it is then possible to try out different

perspective viewpoints in order to achieve a diminution comparable to that adopted by Barbari [Fig. 2a].

This approach reveals that Barbari's depiction was remarkably systematic, even to the extent of reproducing the effect of foreshort-

ening on the norther fringes of the city. The centre of the perspective falls very close to the centre of the map, indicating that the overall layout must have been prepared before the cutting of the blocks was begun. Given the expense and time involved in the whole production exercise, it is surely implausible that the procedure was so

haphazard that the artist started from the east and simply ran out of

space when he reached the west, as Schulz suggests. As Onians pointed out, the crucial and symptomatic change evi-

dent in Barbari's view is that the emphasis of the view falls on the

space of the Piazzetta di San Marco, rather than on the Palazzo Ducale, which forms the focal point in the earlier pilgrim chronicle views of Reuwich (1486) and Wolgemut (1493).30 This is, indeed, a shift of major significance, for it reveals a new consciousness of the role of civic space in Venice, and marks the start of the 16th century's sustained programme to ennoble the city centre. Mauro Codussi's

placing of the stone flagpole bases in front of the basilica in 1486, and his erection of the clock tower at the focal point in the vista shortly before 1500, indicate that Venetians had already been made aware of the significance of this civic arena and its perspectival possibilities.31

In order to achieve this shift, however, Barbari had to depict the Piazzetta using a different perspective vanishing point from the rest of the map, resulting in a disjunction evident in the lines on the

paving. It is even possible that Barbari made this adjustment to the

perspective of the Piazza during the three-year period of execution of the map, inspired by the scenographic success of the insertion of the Clock Tower into the space. Since Piazza San Marco does not fall in the centre of the map, the importance of the Rialto-San Marco axis is emphasised by placing the two deities of Mercury and

Neptune above and below this point. Barbari's representation of the Grand Canal, similarly, betrays a

growing consciousness of the scenic value of this great ceremonial

104

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2b) The outline of Jacopo de' Barbari's map, with each co-ordinate from the base-map used for Figure 2a

plotted on it by Juergen Schulz.

route. During the Renaissance period its banks were straightened, new facades erected and untidy comers improved, to enhance the

impact for processions and state receptions.32 In reality most of the Grand Canal is invisible from San Giorgio, and even from the top of the Campanile di San Marco its path cannot be traced through the mass of buildings unless the viewer is familiar with its landmarks.

Only from vantage points close to the Grand Canal itself, or from a

notionally higher viewpoint than that achievable from any tower, would the Grand Canal appear in the way that Barbad depicts it.

Distortion or image-manipulation?

The important point at issue here is that the overall shape of the

city was already known in the mid 14th century, when Fra Paolino executed his famous ichnographic representation.33 (It has even been suggested that this plan reproduces a 12th-century prototype).34 In this early map, the only significant deviation in the overall form of the city, in relation to its surmised true shape at the time, is the alignment of the upper part of the Grand Canal, which in Fra Paolino's plan seems to follow the line of the present Cannaregio Canal. Conceivably, this was in fact the principal waterway then in use. In addition, the older map obviously does not indicate the artifi- cial land reclamations executed between 1350 and 1500, such as the northern parts of Cannaregio35 and the small extension at Santa Maria Maggiore on the wester margin of the city.36 Aside from these

changes, we can be confident that the overall shape of the city was

already well understood and skilfully surveyed 150 years before Barbari's map was begun. A detailed 15th-century ground-plan of Verona must have adopted even more scientific techniques.37 Such was the expertise of the Venetians in navigation, and so great the

Republic's involvement in the administration of the lagoon water-

ways, that it is inconceivable that the city's true plan-form was not

fully understood in the later 15th century. Undermining this claim is the fact, noticed by Schulz, that 15th

and early 16th-century manuscript plans in use by government bod- ies such as the Magistrato alle Acque adopt a format that elongates the city along its east-west axis and smooths the outlines.38 It will, however, become apparent in the subsequent discussion that these distortions, too, enhance the desired form of the city that is so elo-

quently evoked in Barbari's image, without seriously impeding their

effiency as administrative tools. To what extent was Barbar accomplished in the range of carto-

graphic and perspectival expertise available in Venice, at a time when interest in Ptolemy's Geographywas at its height in humanist circles?39 In his letter to the Elector Frederick, already cited above, the artist insists that painters must be expert mathematicians: "prima nella giometria po aritmetica, lequal due necessita nelle commensu- racione de proportione, che non pol essere proporcione senza numero ne pol essere forme senza geometria." Kemp therefore suggests that the use of an inaccurate base-map, rather than an unsci- entific procedure, is the most likely explanation for Barbari's per-

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DEBORAH HOWARD

spective distortions.40 Such concern with the mathematical dimen- sion of his art should not be surprising in the context of late 15th-century Venice, where Jacopo Bellini's legacy had equipped artists with a sophisticated understanding of perspective techniques.41 Kemp asserts that Carpaccio, like Mantegna and the Bellini family, was a master of perspective, whose perceived "errors" were carried out with deliberate and knowing intentions.42 Codussi, too, employed the sub- tlest perspective manipulations in his architectural designs.43 The portrait of Fra Luca Pacioli pointing to his book Summa de arithmeti- ca, geometria, proportione et proporsionalita, published in 1494, is widely attributed to Jacopo de' Barbari.44 If this attribution is correct, it would add further weight to the suyjestion that the artist was fully cognisant of procedures of perspective and foreshortening.

How, then, in a representation so obsessively concered with accuracy as Barbari's, is one to account for the severe compression at the join of the two left-hand sheets of the woodcut? It is undoubt- edly true that the matching of the blocks was a laborious and difficult task, as the copyright petition implies, but all the other joins were suc- cessfully accomplished. As already indicated, the accidental shortage of space in the westerly blocks proposed by Schulz also seems improbable, given the investment of time and capital in the venture.

It is proposed here that this compression was a deliberate manipulation in order to achieve a specific iconographic purpose, namely to give Venice the visual imagery of the dolphin. It was precisely by pushing the south-west peninsula sharply northwards, towards the newly reclaimed projection at Santa Maria Maggiore, that Barbari was able to give the city's westem perimeter its often noticed resemblance to the distinctive mouth of a dolphin. The so-called "common dolphin", or as Ruskin correctly identified it, the Delphinus delphis, is the species most prevalent in the Mediterranean waters.45 It is characterised by a long beak-like mouth, high forehead and streamlined torpedo-shaped body, precisely the form into which Barbari's image of Venice was manipulated.46

Venice as a dolphin

We have already seen how fine-detail realism allowed the acceptance of larger distortions in order to communicate an ideological content. If, as suggested here, Barbari's map deliberately exaggerated the dolphin-like form of the city of Venice, what was the intention behind this device?

Investigation into the iconographic relevance of delphinic imagery to Barbari's map must begin with the most overt expression of the analogy, namely the literal inclusion of a writhing dolphin, with the figure of Neptune astride its back, in the centre of the Bacino, immediately in front of Piazza San Marco.47 The benevolent impli- cations of the god's presence are declared in the Latin inscription: "I, Neptune, reside here, watching over the seas at this port."

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3) Agostino Veneziano after Raphael, <Venus reclining on a dolphin>, engraving, 166 x 253 mm. (London, British Museum, reproduced by courtesy of the Trustees).

Since the Middle Ages animal similes had been adopted in texts and images to lend iconographic associations to cities or states-Rome 'in forma leonis', a deer for Brindisi, the horse for Troy, and so on.48 Further significance could be afforded by astro- logical signs, a tradition which identified Venice as pisces.49 The ani- mation of cartographic representations gained momentum in the 16th century, exemplified for instance by the popularity of maps of the Low Countries in leonine form.50

Since antiquity, the dolphin had been an attribute not only of Neptune, but also of the god's great lover Venus.51 A 4th century Greek sculptural prototype showing Venus bathing supported by a dolphin was much imitated in Hellenistic and later times, although its most celebrated versions, the Medici and Mazarin Venuses, were not yet discovered in 1500.52 Figures of Venus riding dolphins, however, are commonly found in Renaissance art, for instance in the engraving after Raphael by Agostino Veneziano53 [Fig. 3]. The self-identification of Venice with Venus has already been proposed and argued by David Rosand.54 Venice, like Venus, was a

quasi-supematural image of beauty, bom out of the waves, an anal-

ogy underlined by the assonance in their names. An imager often ma confused with the Venus marina" is the figure

of Fortuneas atri i dolpn n hin, t intfis case the ambiguity would have been a potent one.55 Metamorphosed into a dolphin, Venice thus adopts the dual attributes of Venus and Fortune, the latter much needed by a trading nation involved in risky maritime voyages. The

106




familiar association of the dolphin with speed would have underlined this encomiastic reference to Venice's trading supremacy.56

The figure of Mercury at the top of the map, even more explicit- ly, promises the deity's protection of trade. His Latin inscription boasts: "I, Mercury, shine favourably over this above all other empo- ria." Written descriptions of the period reinforce the city's image as a celebrated emporium: witness Casola's comment in 1494: "Indeed it seems as if all the world flocks there, and that human beings have concentrated there all the force of their trading."57 The relevance of

Mercury to the destiny a great sea-port was appropriated only 15

years later in a printed view of Antwerp.58 In addition, Mercury, the messenger of the gods, is endowed

with powers of healing, an obvious benefit to a city regularly struck

by epidemics of plague.59 Yet even Mercury, too, has mythological associations with the dolphin, as the god responsible for escorting souls into Hades.60 One version of the myth relates that Hermes, in this case relating to the Egyptian Hermes Trismegistus, was instrumental in transforming the just souls into dolphins among the fishes.61

It was through this association that the dolphin also acquired a Christian significance as a symbol of the Resurrection, just as it had been the sacred fish of the Greeks.62 Although the dolphin is not mentioned in the Bible, it was often represented in medieval art, car-

rying the souls of the dead over the waters into eterity.63 The perceived link between the dolphin and the separate existence of the soul had particular appeal in Neoplatonist circles Depicted with a boat, the dolphin could signify the guiding of the Christian soul, or the Church as a whole, towards salvation.64 Such an association

might help to justify the disproportionately huge size and prominence of the ships in Barbari's map. Although Venice guarded her

religious independence zealously, she was proud of her reputation as a holy city, the first stage in the sacred pilgrimage route to Jerusalem. The Milanese priest, Casola, embarking for the Holy Land in 1494, deduced that "the Venetians must be greatly aided by God in all their affairs, because they are very solicitous with regard to divine worship in all their churches."65

Evidence for Venetian awareness of dolphin imagery around 1500

How confident can we be of the familiarity of the Venetian public with such symbolic associations? The dolphin figures in Mediterranean culture from antiquity onwards, already vividly depicted in a wall-painting in the palace of Knossos in Crete.66 The

species is described by Aristotle, in whose writings Barbari's interest is betrayed in his letter to the Elector Frederick, when he remarks that painters need to know philosophy "secondo li testi de Aristotile de anima, dove trata come le specie pervengono aliochi..."67

By 1500 there were already numerous representations of dolphins to be seen in Venetian art. The earliest surviving are the two

graceful dolphins in the tabemacle on the left of the souther apse chapel in the Basilica at Torcello, which seem to date from the time of the foundation of the original cathedral in 639.68 Dolphin-like fish crowd the waters in the celebrated early 13th-century mosiac of The Creation of the Birds and Fishes in the atrium of San Marco.69

Through Herodotus's narrative, Venetian humanists were cer-

tainly familiar with the role of the dolphin in the Arion legend, one that is especially pertinent to the city's self-image.70 On the eighth capital from the right on the 14th-century Bacino facade of the Doge's Palace appears the figure of Arion, playing his violin and riding a dol-

phin. Ruskin remarks that 'The dolphin has a goodly row of teeth, and the waves beat upon his back."71 According to the legend, Arion, poet and musician, was returing from Italy to Greece with a cargo of treasures, when his crew turned on him and threatened to throw him into the sea. He attracted the help of a dolphin by playing music, and, mounting the great fish, was able to reach land ahead of the mutinous ship and reclaim his property. As an image of the power of virtue (symbolised by musical harmony, a favourite Venetian allu-

sion) to protect precious cargoes, Arion and his dolphin held potent associations for the mercantile viewer in the Piazza.

As we approach 1500, interest in dolphins reveals itself across a wide cultural spectrum. The fish was the emblem of the epony- mous Venetian noble family, one of whom, the merchant and humanist Zuanne Dolfin, was a zealous collector of antique gems and coins and a friend of Ciriaco d'Ancona. A copy by Giuliano da

Sangallo of a lost drawing by Ciriaco depicts a nereid riding two dol-

phins, wearing a dolphin head-dress, and carrying a dolphin under one arm and ship under the other, presumably a tribute to Zuanne Dolfin.72

As a zealous numismatist and Grecophile, Zuanne Dolfin probably owned some of the numerous ancient Greek coins figuring dolphins, such as the single dolphin on the archaic coin from Zankle (now Messina) of c. 510 BC.73 Coins from Tarentum minted in the

early 4th century depict Arion riding on his dolphin;74 and one ancient Greek mint, at lasos in Asia Minor, exhibited dolphins on its entire output of coinage. One of the most beautiful is the celebrated silver dekadrachm from Syracuse, struck after the famous victory over the Athenians in 413 BC, and datable to 405-400 BC75 [Fig. 4]. On the obverse, a Nike crowns the victorious charioteer as he drives his quadriga forward, with the spoils of victory displayed beneath. On the reverse is the head of a goddess (now known to be Arethusa) rimmed by dolphins.76 Such a juxtaposition of images must have invited association between the dolphin and the triumphal display of Venice's four bronze horses.

In the wing of the Doge's Palace erected after the fire of 1483, two fireplaces in the ducal private apartments, in rooms on the first floor over the canal, are decorated with friezes of playful putti riding

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DEBORAH HOWARD

4) Greek dekadrachm, with quadriga on the obverse and head of Arethusa ringed by dolphins on the reverse. Silver coin, 35 mm diameter. Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, Sylloge Nummorum Gracorum IV, no. 1279. (Reproduced by courtesy of the Director and Syndics of the Fitzwilliam Museum).

dolphins flanking images of the Lion of St Mark, as if to underline the

patriotic association of the imagery. Wolters proposes the identification of these chimneypieces with those executed for the Sala dell'Udienza and its Anti-camera by Tullio and Antonio Lombardo in 1500, the very year of the publication of the Barbari map.77 Thus we know that at that precise moment, dolphins were adopted to adorn the setting for ducal audiences.

Further attention is drawn to the imagery of the dolphin in the same years when Aldus Manutius adopts as his trademark the anchor with a dolphin entwined around it.78 This image was associated by humanists with Suetonius's citation of the expression "Festina lente"

(approximately "more haste less speed') in his life of Augustus,79 and is mentioned verbally by Aldus in a preface of 1499.80 In the same

year the visual image appears for the first time in one of the illustra- tions to Manutius's celebrated publication, Franceso Colonna's

Hypnerotmachia polifili. Like the dolphin with a ship, the anchor and

dolphin together are understood to allude to the Christian faith.81 By 1501 Aldus had begun to use the motif as his own device in his books, thereby giving prominence to the significance of the dolphin in Venetian printing and publishing circles.82 (The adoption of this device

gives credence to the suggestion that Mercury's caduceus, later

adopted by Barbari as his own signature, was intended as the artist's claim to the authorship of the 1500 map.83)

The link between the copious realism characterising written

descriptions of Venice in the last years of the 15th century and the

"eye-witness style" of visual depictions of the city at that time has

already been mentioned. It is particularly fitting to associate the pen of Marn Sanudo with Barbari's map, since Kolb's initiative is actual-

ly recorded in his Diariiin 1500. Sanudo's own verbal description of Venice was compiled in 1493, only a few years before the start of work on the map. Here we find an explicit reference to the patriotic assocation perceived between the dolphin and the fortunes of the Venetian Republic:

According to what wise men say the Venetian Republic will last for ever, as appears in this epigram:

So long as the sea contains dolphins, So long as clear skies contain stars, So long as the moist ground yields her pleasant fruits, So long as the human race survives on earth, The spendour of the Venetians will be celebrated for all eterity.84

Durability of the image

The durability of the mental image of the city created by Barbari's virtuosic achievement is a remarkable one. Before 1500 the wider European public had no clear picture of the layout of Venice: Casola admitted, for instance, "I cannot give the overall dimensions of the city, for it appears to me not one city alone but several cities placed together".85 The dolphin-shaped silhouette per- sists in engraved city views until the fall of the Republic in 1797, and is even retained in occasional 19th-century prints.86 This is not the

place to chart the later history of Venetian map-making, but a few related observations deserve attention.

Jacopo Sansovino's activities in Venice after his arrival in 1527 reflect a sensitive awareness of Barbari's legacy, both in

iconographic and urbanistic terms. Venus, Neptune and Mercury appear in the Loggetta sculpture, together with Apollo, another

deity with delphinic associations, while Neptune is represented with a dolphin in one of the two colossal statues at the head of the Scala dei Giganti.87 The absence of clutter in the Piazza, evoking the eerie stillness of the late 15th-century ideal city views in Urbino and Baltimore, becomes an aspiration which pervades subsequent improvements to the city centre.88 As Vasari relates, Sansovino's first activity after his arrival in Venice is the removal of the market stalls which cluster around the feet of the two great columns, omitted from Barbari's view.89 Unlike the San Giovanni

Evangelista canvases, and even townscape prints such as the woodcut of the Riva degli Schiavoni, Barbari's city is an empty stage, populated only by gods and ships, as if to enhance its Homeric qualities.

As Martin Kemp observed, the puffing heads of the eight winds around its elliptical rim express more than their obvious relevance to trade and navigation, or even the well-known association with

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Mercury.90 They also allude overtly to the same feature in world

maps of the period, such as those found in 15th-century manuscripts and printed editions of Ptolemy's Geography, as if to underline the

universal, elemental, and cosmological significance of the image.91 The prominence of the quinquennial date further highlights the momentousness of the image.

Unlike the Urbino and Baltimore panels, which remained utopi- an ideals, Barbari's Venice is a real place.92 Yet, since its site was almost entirely man-made by the laborious process of land reclama- tion and piling, its whole form could be artificially created, and adjust- ed through time.93 It is intriguing to remember that the major extension to the city in the 16th century along the northern fringes of the

city served to enhance the stream-lined profile of the dolphin's back.94 The smoothing of the fish's belly was accomplished with the

Acknowledgments This article is dedicated to the memory of Carolyn Kolb, whose horribly pre- cocious death was such a great loss to the field of Venetian Renaissance architecture. To her wisdom, inspiration, intellectual generosity and friendship I owe a great debt. I also acknowledge the huge contribution of Professor Juergen Schulz to the study of this particular subject. My article could not have been undertaken without his inspiring and pioneering work. Nearly 20 years ago the Cassa di Risparmio di Venezia kindly gave me a copy of its limited edition facsimile of Jacopo de' Barbari's map (in retum for a copy of my book on Jacopo Sansovino-a somewhat uneven bargain), although my account with the bank would never have justified it. Koray Konuk generously shared with me his expertise in classical Greek coins. lan Hitchman produced the perspective version of the map in Juergen Schulz's article of 1978. Other helpful information was kindly supplied by Professor John Crook, Dr Vaughan Hart, Professor Malcolm Longair and Dr Jean-Michel Massing.

Bibliography of frequently cited sources David Landau and Peter Parshall, The Renaissance Print 1470-1550, New Haven & London, 1994 Jay A. Levenson, Jacopo de' Barbari and Northern Art of the early sixteenth century, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, New York University, 1978

construction of the riva of the Zattere in 1519.95 It might be far-fetched to suggest that the recent reclamations at Santa Maria

Maggiore had consciously provided the dolphin's upper lower jaw, or that the extension at Sant'Antonio had formed a tail-fin.96 Once the

imagery achieved graphic form in 1500, however, further develop- ments could respond to the potency of this idealised vision.

The delphinic allusion bestowed on Venice the protection of

Neptune and Mercury, as well as the identity of her alter-ego, Venus. This article has suggested that it also endowed her with associations of speed, fortune, musical harmony and ultimately the Christian resurrection of the soul. Even the pedantic Scamozzi was beguiled by the imagery when he wrote of Venice in his Idea della architettura universale in 1615: "la sua forma s'assomiglia advn Delfino, col

petto al Mare, e la schiena verso Terra."97

Jay A. Levenson, Circa 1492: Art in the Age of Exploration, exhibition catalogue, National Gallery of Art, Washington, published by Yale University Press, New Haven & London, 1991 T. Pignatti & G. Mazzariol, La pianta prospettica di Venezia del 1500, text accompanying the facsmile edition privately printed by the Cassa di Risparmio, Venice, 1963. Teresio Pignatti, "La pianta di Venezia di Jacopo de' Barbari," Bollettino dei Musei Civici Veneziani, IX, 1964, pp. 9-49 (reprint of Pignatti's text from the facsimile edition of 1963). Giandomenico Romanelli & Susanna Biadene, Venezia piante e vedute: Catalogo del fondo cartografico a stampa, exhibition catalogue, Museo Correr, Venice, 1982. Juergen Schulz, 'The Printed Plans and Panoramic Views of Venice (1486-1797)," Saggi e memorie di storia dell'arte, vol. 7, Venice, 1970. Juergen Schulz, "Jacopo de' Barbari's View of Venice: Map-making, city views, and moralized geography before the year 1500," Art Bulletin, LX, 1978, pp. 425-474; revised version in Italian in Juergen Schulz, La cartografia tra scienza e arte: Carte e cartografia nel Rinascimento italiano, Modena-Ferrara, 1990, pp. 13-63. Guy de Tervarent, Attributs et symboles dans I'art profane 1450-1600: Dictionnaire d'un langage perdu, vol. I, (Travaux d'Humanisme et Renaissance XXIX), Geneva, 1959.

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DEBORAH HOWARD

1 For descriptions, catalogue information and further bibliography, see especially, Pignatti (1964); Schulz (1970 and 1978); Levenson (1978).

2 Patricia Fortini Brown, Venetian Narrative Painting in the Age of

Carpaccio, New Haven & London, 1978, especially pp. 125-164. 3 Venice, Archivio di Stato, Collegio, Notatorio, registro 15 (anni 1499

-1507), fol. 28 recto. The original text is transcribed in Pignatti (1964), pp. 28 - 29; and in Schulz (1978), p. 473.

4 Marin Sanudo, I diarii, ed. R. Fulin, Venice, 1879 - 1903, vol. Ill, col. 1006.

5 The attribution to Jacopo de' Barbari was first proposed by Ernst Harzen in 1855. See especially Pignatti (1964), pp. 32-33; Schulz (1978), pp. 425-428; Levenson (1978), pp. 104-105, 279-281.

6 Levenson (1978), pp. 4-5. 7 Levenson (1978), pp. 24 and 355. 8 Levenson (1978), p. 24, n. 64. Possibly Kolb's Imperial connections

kept him away from Venice during the intervening period of the Cambrai Wars.

9 Landau & Parshall, p. 43. 10 Lucien Febvre & Henri-Jean Martin, The Coming of the Book: The

Impact of Printing 1450-1800, trans. D. Gerard, London, 1976, pp. 222-223. At least 60 Venetian sheet maps and 17 large, mounted, painted wall-maps were on sale in the map section of the 1573 Frankfurt book fair (R. A. Skelton, Maps: A Historical Survey of their Study and Collecting, Chicago & London, 1972, p. 45).

11 The known impressions of all three states are listed by Pignatti (1964) pp. 40-44. Some additions and corrections are added by Schulz

(1978), p. 474. 12 Landau & Parshall, p. 43. 13 On map collecting at this period see Skelton, pp. 29-45. 14 Landau & Parshall, pp. 83-88. See also note 10, above. 15 I. Morelli, Notizie d'opere di disegno nella prima meta del secolo XVI,

Bassano, 1800, p. 77. See also Levenson (1978), p. 40. 16 Dora Frieda Thornton, The Study Room in Renaissance Italy with

particular reference to Venice circa 1560-1620, unpublished Ph. D. dissertation, Warburg Institute, London University, 1990, p. 88; citing Sanudo, I diarii, XII, col. 293, 5 December 1511.

17 David S. Chambers, "Bird's-eye View of Venice", in Jane Martineau & Charles Hope (eds.), The Genius of Venice 1500-1600, exhibiton cata-

logue, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1983, pp. 392-392, cat. no. H1. Marcantonio Sabellico's text, De Venetae urbis situ, was first published in Venice in 1490.

18 Marin Sanudo il giovane, De origine, situ et magistratibus urbis venetae, ovvero La Citta di Venetia (1493-1530), ed. Angela Caracciolo Arico, Milan, 1980.

19 Levenson (1978), pp. 3, 104-106, 281. 20 Letter in Weimar, Staatsarchiv, Reg. 0. 156, f. 209-210, transcribed

in Levenson (1978), pp. 342-345. 21 The issues are summarised in Schulz (1978), p. 428; Levenson

(1978), p. 281. 22 Paul Kristeller, L'ceuvre de Jacopo de'Barbari, Berlin, 1896, pp. 3-4;

Landau & Parshall, p. 43. 23 Schulz (1978), p. 473. 24 Landau & Parshall, pp. 16-17. On paper manufacture at this time,

see Febvre and Martin, pp. 29-44. 25 Jacopo was appointed "Contrafeter und Illuminist" (portraitist and

miniaturist) to Emperor Maximilian for one year on 8 April 1500 in Augsburg. See Levenson (1978), pp. 4, 340.

26 Ricciotti Bratti, "La pianta prospettica di Venezia dell'anno 1500. Cenni storici," Rivista mensile della citta di Venezia, VI, 1927, pp. 43-54; Schulz (1970), p. 21.

27 Schulz (1978), pp. 431-436

28 See P. D. A. Harvey, The History of Topographical Maps: Symbols, Pictures and Surveys, London, 1980, pp. 154-155 and pi. 89; Martin Kemp, The Science of Art: Optical themes in western art from Brunelleschi to Seurat, New Haven & London, 1990, pp. 168-171.

29 Schulz (1978), pp. 437-439. 30 John B. Onians, Style and Decorum in Sixteenth-Century Italian

Architecture, unpublished Ph. D. thesis, Warburg Institute, London University, 1968.

31 Lionello Puppi and Loredana Olivato Puppi, Mauro Codussi, Milan, 1977, pp. 195-196, cat. no. 6; Deborah Howard, "Ritual Space in Renaissance Venice," Scroope, vol. 5, 1993/4, pp. 4-10, especially p. 8.

32 Ennio Concina, Venezia nell'eta moderna, Padua, 1989, pp. 113-114; Howard (1993/4), p. 9.

33 Schulz (1970), p. 16; Romanelli & Biadene, pp. 7-8. 34 Tomaso Temanza, Antica pianta dell'inclita citta di Venezia, Venice,

1781, pp. 52 ff., p. 86. 35 The land had been gradually reclaimed since the late 13th century,

with particularly rapid advancement in the decades preceding the Black Death and in the years 1420-30. See Elisabeth Crouzet-Pavan, "Sopra le acque salse": Espaces, pouvoir et societe a Venise a la fin du Moyen Age, Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medio Evo, Nuovi Studi Storici 14, 2 vols., Rome, 1992, vol. I, pp. 71-119.

36 See Giorgio Gianighian & Paola Pavanini, Dietro i palazzi, exhibition catalogue, Venice, 1984, pp. 45-57, 140-145.

37 P. D. A. Harvey, "Local and Regional Cartography in Medieval Europe," in J. B. Harley and David Woodward, The History of Cartography, vol. I:

Cartography in Prehistoric, Ancient and Medieval Europe and the Mediterranean, Chicago & London, 1987, pp. 464-501, esp. pp. 478-9 and pl. 34.

38 Schulz, 1970, pp. 16-17. 39 See, for example, Samuel Y. Edgerton, Jr., "From mental matrix to

Mappamundi to Christian Empire: The heritage of Ptolomaic cartography in the Renaissance," in David Woodward (ed.), Art and Cartography: Six historical essays, Chicago & London, 1987, pp. 10-50.

40 Martin Kemp, "Jacopo de' Barbari: View of Venice," in Levenson (1991), Cat. no. 151, pp. 253-255.

41 Colin Eisler, The Genius of Jacopo Bellini: The complete paintings and drawings, New York, 1989, pp. 443-448.

42 "Vittor Carpaccio, Miracle of the Relic of the True Cross, "in Levenson (1991), cat. no. 150, pp. 252-253.

43 e.g. in the staircase of the Scuola Grande di San Giovanni

Evangelista. See Philip L. Sohm, 'The Staircases of the Venetian Scuole Grandi and Mauro Coducci," Architectura, VIII, 1978, pp. 135-140; Puppi &

Puppi, pp. 140 ff. & cat. no. 14. 44 Martin Kemp, "Jacopo de' Barbari (?), Portrait of Fra Luca Pacioli

with a young man," in Levenson (1991), cat. no. 143, pp. 244-246. 45 John Ruskin, The Stones of Venice, 3 vols. (1851-3), London, 1907

edn., vol. I, p. 229 46 David Macdonald (ed.)., The Encyclopaedia of Mammals, vol. I,

London & Sydney, 1984, p. 189. 47 On the use of the dolphin as an attribute of Neptune, see de

Tervarent, col. 143. 48 See Philip Jacks, The Antiquarian and the Myth of Antiquity: The

Origins of Rome in Renaissance Thought, Cambridge, 1993, p. 55. 49 See Jacks (1993), p. 61 and note 230 on p. 289. I am grateful to

Maximilian Tondro for pointing out these references to me. 50 See Simon Schama, The Embarrassment of Riches, London, 1991

edn., pp.54-55. 51 De Tervarent, p. 143. 52 Phyllis Pray Bober & Ruth Rubinstein, Renaissance Artists & Antique

Sculpture: A Handbook of Sources, London, 1986, p. 61.

110




53 Konrad Oberhuber (ed.), The Illustrated Bartsch, vol. 26 (formerly XIV, part 1, in Adam Bartsch's original edition), pi. 239 (formerly 192).

54 David Rosand, 'Venetia Figurata: the Iconography of a Myth," in D. Rosand (ed.), Interpretazioni veneziane: Studi di storia dell'arte in onore di Michelangelo Muraro, Venice, 1984, pp. 177-196, esp. pp. 189-190.

55 De Tervarent, col. 145. 56 De Tervarent, col. 143. 57 M. Margaret Newett, Canon Pietro Casola's Pilgrimage to Jerusalem

in the year 1494, Manchester, 1907, p. 129. 58 Schulz (1978), p. 468. 59 W. H. Roscher, Ausf0hrliches Lexikon der Griechischen und

Romischen Mythologie, Leipzig, 1886-90, vol. I, part 2, col. 2379. On Hermes Trismegistus, see Garth Fowden, The Egyptian Hermes: A Historical Approach to the Late Pagan Mind, Cambridge, 1986. On the impact of the Hermetic tradition in the Renaissance see Frances A Yates, The Art of

Memory, London, 1992 edn., especially pp. 149, 295-296. 60 Roscher, vol I, part 2, col. 2373 - 2375; see, for example, Homer,

Odyssey, Book XXIV. 61 Eugenio Battisti, "Natura artificiosa to natura artificialis," in David

Coffin (ed.), The Italian Garden, Washington, 1972, pp. 19-20 & n. 4. This source was kindly drawn to my attention by Dr Vaughan Hart.

62 Hence the sacred assocations of the constellation Delphinus (see R. H. Allen, Star-names and their meanings, New York, 1899, p. 199).

63 Engelbert Kirschbaum SJ, Lexikon der Christlichen Ikonographie, vol. I, Rome-Freiburg-Basel-Vienna, 1968, cols. 503-504.

64 George Ferguson, Signs and Symbols in Christian Art, London, 1954, p. 10.

65 Casola, p. 138. 66 Macdonald, pp. 172-173. 67 Levenson, p. 344. 68 Antonio Niero, The Basilica of Torcello and Santa Fosca's, Venice,

s.d., p. 24. 69 Demus, The Mosaics of San Marco in Venice, Part II The Thirteenth

Century, vol. 2, pi. 33. 70 Herodotus, The Histories, trans. Aubrey de Selincourt, revised A. R.

Bum, London, 1972 edn., p. 49 (Book I, ch. 24). 71 Ruskin, vol. II, p. 335. 72 See Deborah Howard. "Responses to ancient Greek architecture in

Renaissance Venice," Annali diArchitettura, 6, 1994, pp. 23-38. The nereid is illustrated in Fig. 6.

73 An example of this coin is on display in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

74 These are illustrated in Burnham's Celestial Handbook, 3 vols., New York, 1966, vol. 2, p. 824.

75 Eleven examples of this coin, together with numerous related coins, such as the similar diadrachm, are in the collection of the Fitzwilliam Museum,

Cambridge. See Sylloge Nummorum Graecorum: IV Fitzwilliam Museum: Leake and General Collections, London, 1940, Nos. 1271-1281.

76 The known surviving examples of this coin are examined in detail in Albert Gallatin, Syracusan Dekadrachms, Cambridge, Mass., 1930.

77 Umberto Franzoi, Teresio Pignatti & Wolfgang Wolters, // Palazzo Ducale di Venezia, Treviso, 1990, pp. 158-159.

78 Henry George Fletcher III, NewAldine Studies: Documentary Essays on the Life and Work of Aldus Manutius, San Franciso, 1988, pp. 43-59.

79 Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars, trans. Robert Graves, Harmondsworth, 1957, p. 63 (Life of Augustus, ch. 25).

80 Fletcher, p. 43. 81 Ferguson, p. 10. 82 Fletcher, pp. 44-45. 83 Levenson (1978), p. 281 84 Sanudo (ed. Caracciolo Arico), p. 39. Translation adapted from that

by Chambers in David Chambers and Brian Pullan (eds.), A Documentary History of Venice 1450-1630, Oxford, 1992, p. 21.

85 Casola, pp. 125-126. 86 Schulz (1970); Romanelli & Biadene; Giuliana Mazzi, "La cartografia

per il mito: Le immagini di Venezia nel Cinquecento," in Lionello Puppi, Architettura e Utopia nella Venezia del Cinquecento (exhibition catalogue, Palazzo Ducale, Venice), Milan, 1980, pp. 50-57.

87 Bruce Boucher, The Sculpture of Jacopo Sansovino, New Haven & London, 2 vols., 1991, vol. I, pp. 73-88, pp. 128-141; vol. II, cat. no. 27, pp. 334-335; and cat. no. 35, pp. 341-342.

88 See Richard Krautheimer, 'The Panels in Urbino, Baltimore and Berlin reconsidered," in Henry Millon and Vittorio Magnano Lampugnani, The Renaissance from Brunelleschi to Michelangelo: The Representation of Architecture (catalogue of exhibition in Venice and Washington), London, 1994, pp. 233-258.

89 Vasari-Milanesi, VII, p. 501; Deborah Howard, Jacopo Sansovino: Architecture and Patronage in Renaissance Venice, New Haven & London, 1987 edn., pp. 11-13.

90 Kemp in Levenson (1991), p. 254. 91 See Woodward, p. 13; Levenson (1991), pp. 228-229. 92 See Lionello Puppi, Architettura e Utopia nella Venezia del

Cinquecento (exhibition catalogue, Palazzo Ducale, Venice), Milan, 1980, especially Manfredo Tafuri, "'Sapienza di Stato'e 'Atti mancati': Architettura e tecnica urbana nella Venezia del '500," pp. 16-39.

93 See especially Concina, pp.105-125. 94 Concina, pp. 122-125. 95 Chambers in Martineau & Hope, p. 392. 96 Gianighian and Pavanini, pp. 45 - 57. 97 Vincenzo Scamozzi, L'idea della architettura universale, 2 vols.,

Venice, 1615, vol. I, p. 128.

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deborah - venice as a dolphin

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