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To the glory of God: building the church of S. Maria della Carità, Venice, 1441-1454
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 April 2016
Extract
If one leaves the campo of S. Stefano in Venice and walks towards the lush garden of Palazzo Cavalli Franchetti, the monumental Palladian facade of S. Vidal looms on the right. If we continue and turn the corner, we find ourselves in precisely the place where Canaletto stood around 1725, when he painted the famous picture now known as The Stonemasons’ Yard.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain 1994
References
Notes
Archivio di Stato di Venezia is abbreviated to ASV throughout.
1 Sansovino, Francesco and Martinioni, Giustiniano, Venetia, città nobilissima et singolare (Venice, 1663), 1, 265.Google Scholar
2 Ibid.; Tassini, Giuseppe, Curiosità Veneziane, 9th edn (Venice, 1988), pp. 133–34.Google Scholar
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid. The ‘regular’ Austin or Augustinian canons, established in the eleventh century, were not a preaching order like the Franciscans or Dominicans, but were dedicated to contemplation and theological study.
5 Archivio di Stato di Venezia: S. Maria della Carità; Parte terza (documenti cartacei), B.3 (hereafter abbreviated to ASV Carità P.3, B.3).
6 Secondary works on the church’r history are not extensive, although they include the following: Fogolari, G., ‘La chiesa di S. Maria della Carità di Venezia’, Archivio Veneto-Tridentino, 5 (1924), 57–119 Google Scholar; Sohm, P., The Scuola Grande di San Marco 1437-1550 (New York and London, 1982)Google Scholar; Bassi, E., II Cotwento della Carità (Vicenza 1971)Google Scholar; Tassini, G., ‘Confraternità di S. Maria della Carità di Venezia’, Archivio Vetieto, 12 (1876), 112–29 Google Scholar; Paoletti, P., L’rrchitettura e la scultura del rinoscimento in Venezia, 2 vols (Venice, 1893)Google Scholar; Franzoi, U. and Stefano, D. Di, Le chiese di Venezia (Venice, 1976)Google Scholar; Schulz, A. M., ‘The sculpture of Giovanni and Bartolomeo Bon and their workshop’, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 68, pt 3 (June, 1978), 1–81 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Wolters, W., La scultura veneziana gotica 1360-1460, 2 vols (Venice, 1976)Google Scholar.
7 ASV Carità P.3, B.3, c.45.
8 Ibid., C.30 et seq. contain records of elemosine for the works.
9 One one occasion, dom. Agostin had to go up to Cividale in the Friuli to pay for some timber (ibid., c.46).
10 The very first entry in the booklet records the purchase of four ledgers, none of which seem to have survived, to keep the building accounts.
11 On the last page, where dom. Agostin summarizes the previous 15 folios of accounts, his own grand total is around 300 ducats adrift: ibid., c.57t.
12 However, on several occasions he refers to the noble Lorenzo Soranzo, who was procurator of the church‘r works, and who probably kept more reliable records; see, for example, cc.8t, 9; see also ASV Scuola Grande della Carità B.227, no. 60.
13 Fogolari, ‘La chiesa’, pp. 57 ff.
14 ASV Carità P.3., B.3., c.45.
15 Ibid. The portico seems to have been taken down in spring 1442. See also a long agreement between the monastery and the Scuola regarding this portico and rights of access, published by Sohm: Scuola, pp. 299-301 (doc. 130).
16 ASV Carità P.3., B.3., c.45.
17 With the exception of the footings to the apses, which were all new: ibid., c. 55.
18 Ibid., c.45.
19 Ibid.; wages record 93½ days work by masters and craftsmen and 57½ days work by labourers.
20 Ibid., c.45t. A Venetian foot measured 347mm.
21 Ibid.
22 Ibid.
23 Steffanino (‘de Pavari’) also worked on the Morosini chapel at the Madonna dell‘Orto at about the same time: ASV Proc. di S. Marco de Citra B. 189, esp. fasc. 4, 6, and 11.
24 Marco Corner was one of the most prominent suppliers of bricks in the city; he also provided many for the new church of S. Zaccaria: ASV S. Zaccaria B.31, especially c.90 (1462).
25 For a recent, useful summary of the careers of the two Bon, see Connell, S., The Employment of Sculptors and Stonemasons in Venice in the Fifteenth Century (New York and London, 1988), especially pp. 8—23 Google Scholar.
26 See my own discussions on the cost of building the Cà d‘rro in Goy, R. J., The House of Gold: Building a Palace in Medieval Venice (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 244—46 Google Scholar and Appendix 1.
27 ASV S. Zaccaria B.31., c.24. On 11 October 1458, Bertuzi de Iacomo was instructed to make six windows, four of them ‘de la granaeza e largeza e condition de quele de la giexia de la carita.
28 ASV Collegio de‘rrovveditori al Sal, vol. 3 (1411-1520), p. 84.
29 Ibid., p. 8.
30 Goy, House of Gold, especially chs 19, 24, 25, and 33; and App. 4 and 6. It is generally accepted that zuanne Bon was born c. 1355.
31 ASV Carità P.3., B.3., c.46. On 29 June he was advanced 26 ducats to buy stone.
32 Ibid., c.46, 46t.
33 Ibid., c.46t, 47.
34 ASV Collegio de‘rrovveditori al Sal, vol. 3, p. 84.
35 As late as 1463 Bon and his partner Pantaleone were being pressed to compete their obligations: ASV Senato, Terra, Reg. 5, c.50.
36 ASV Carità P.3., B.3., cc.47t, 48.
37 Ibid., c.47, 1 June 1443: ‘…de eser facto como e quelo de santa maria da lorto’. Bon executed several works at the church, including the Marco Morosino tomb in 1441-43 and a new portal in 1460. See note 23 above; see also ASV Scuole Piccole B.417 fasc.A, fol. 83.
38 ASV Carità P.3., B.3., cc.46t, 47, 47t, 48.
39 Ibid., c.47t.
40 Ibid., cc.48t, 49.
41 Ibid., C.49. The bas-relief is now at the Salute.
42 Ibid., cc.48t, 49, 49t; he was paid 24 October.
43 There are no payments recorded between 27 December 1444 and 20 March 1445.
44 ASV Carità, P. 3,, B. 3., c. 50. Steffanino seems to have moved to the Carità immediately after his work on the Morosini chapel at the Madonna dell’Orto was completed: see note 23 above.
45 Ibid., C.50.
46 Ibid., c.49t. The bank was run by the notable merchant Francesco Balbi and his brothers: see Lane, F. C., I mercanti di Venezia (Turin, 1982), especially pp. 19–22, 100-07.Google Scholar Most timber for the Venetian construction industry came from the Friuli.
47 ASV Carità, P.3., B.3., c.50t.
48 Ibid., C.51.
49 Ibid. Much of the zonejust east of SS Giovanni e Paolo was occupied by timber yards, as de‘rarbari‘r view of 1500 shows. Soon afterwards 900 more cantinele were required for the soffit.
50 Ibid., c.52t.
51 Ibid., c.51.
52 For Luxe at the Cà d‘rro, see ASV Proc. di S. Marco de Citra B.269 bis., libretti di spese, no. IV. Much of his career can be traced; he was also associated with the Madonna dell’Orto and the Corte Nova almshouses nearby.
53 ASV Carità P.3., B.3, c.51t. Such negotiated increases were not uncommon, and there are examples at S. Zaccaria and Marin Contarini‘r Cà d‘rro; see note 52 above, and ASV S. Zaccaria, B.31.
54 ASV Carità P.3., B.3, c.50t.
55 Ibid.
56 Ibid., C.52 and 52t: ‘riara 4 de prede picule per li architi.
57 Ibid., c.52.
58 Ibid., c.52t.
59 Ibid., c.51t.
60 Ibid.
61 Ibid., c.52. These aedicules were then a characteristic feature of such façades; see, for example, S. Stefano and the Scuola Vecchia della Misericordia. The latter was rebuilt in 1441 and the stonework again came from Bon‘r yard. See also ibid., 0.53t, and Canaletto‘r The Grand Canal from the Church of the Carità (c. 1730) in the Royal Collection at Windsor. The same view was engraved by Visentini in 1742 from Canaletto‘r painting, and published in Prospectus magni canalis venetiarum (Fig. 4).
62 ASV Carità P.3., B.3, c.53.
63 Ibid., c.52t.
64 Ibid.
65 Ibid., CC.53, 53t, 54.
66 Ibid., CC.54, 57.
67 Ibid., c.5it.
68 Ibid., C.54. Ercole del Fiore was the adopted son of the painter Jacobello del Fiore (c. 1370-1439). Jacobello shows a mixture of Byzantine and high Gothic styling in his paintings, which are rich in both colour and decorative detail. He painted for the Palazzo Ducale, and much of his later life was spent in the service of the Republic. Little is known of Ercole, other than his work at the Carità.
69 Ibid., c.54t.
70 ASV Scuola Grande della Carità B.227, no. 60; and B.3, no. 10.
71 ASV Carità P.3, B.3, c.54t.
72 Ibid., C.55.
73 Ibid., CC.55, 55t (21 December 1450).
74 Ibid., c.55t (29 April 1461).
75 Ibid., CC.55, 55t.
76 Ibid.
77 Ibid. This was the same Pantaleone (di Paolo?) who also worked with the younger Bon at the Porta della Carta.
78 Ibid.
79 Ibid., C.56.
80 Ibid., CC.56, 56t.
81 Ibid., c.56 (10 October 1452).
82 Ibid., C.57.
83 Ibid., c.56t.
84 Ibid.
85 Ibid. (30 May 1454).
86 Ibid., c.57.
87 Antonio Vivarini seems to have already become acquainted with the Carità institutions; ten years earlier, in 1446, he and Giovanni d‘rllemagna had painted the ‘rarità triptych’ for the Scuola. The painting, now in the Accademia, depicts the Virgin enthroned with the four ‘roctors’ or fathers of the early Christian Church.
88 They are also tied, to distribute stresses caused by differential settlement.
89 See Goy, House of Gold, and note 63 above. This appears to have been an almost universal procedure where there was not a permanent salaried proto.
90 The records of Steffanino, cited above, are typical of patterns of work for builders in this period.
91 For Donatello‘r career, see Morisani, O., Studi su Donatello (Venice, 1953)Google Scholar; and Janson, H. W. and Lanyi, J., The Sculpture of Donatello (Princeton, 1957)Google Scholar.
92 For the Vivarini (Antonio, his brother Bartolommeo, and his son Alvise) see Moschini, V., Vivarini (Milan, 1956)Google Scholar.
93 See Valcanover, F. et al., Titian (Venice, 1990)Google Scholar; Tietze, H., Titian (London, 1950)Google Scholar; Hope, C., Titian (London, 1980)Google Scholar.
94 Palladio, A., I quattro libri dell’architettura (Venice, 1570; facs. ed., Milan, 1969)Google Scholar; Libro Secondo, pp. 29-32.
95 For the Barbarigo tombs, see McAndrew, J., Venetian Architecture of the Early Renaissance (Boston, 1980), pp. 77–78 Google Scholar; and Schulz, A. M., Antonio Rizzo, Sculptor and Architect (Princeton, 1983)Google Scholar.