The Mermaids of Venice: Fantastic Sea Creatures in Venetian Renaissance Art

THE MERMAIDS OF VENICE alison luchs

Antonio Lombardo and Alessandro Leopardi, The Nereid CymothoĂŤ, 1503/1505, detail of central flagpole base, bronze, height of relief band c. 63Â cm, Venice, Piazza San Marco.

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A l i s o n Lu ch s

5The)Mermaids% 5of)Venice% F a n ta s t i c S e a C r e at u r e s in Venetian R e n a i s s a n c e A rt

h a rv e y m i l l e r p u b l i s h e r s

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For Benjamin

Ha rvey Miller Publisher s An Imprint of Brepols Publishers London . Turnhout British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978-1-90537545-5

Š 2010, Brepols Publishers n.v., Turnhout, Belgium All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior permission of ­ Harvey Miller Publishers.

Printing and binding by Grafikon, Oostkamp, Belgium

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Contents P h o t o g r a p h i c c r e d i t s vi A c k n o w l e d g m e n t s vii Introduction 1 Prologue: A H e r i ta g e o f M o n s t e r s 7 F i s h-ta i l e d h u m a n s 8 Tritons 8 M e r m a i d s : t r i t o n e s s , n e r e i d , S k y l l a 12 M a r i n e c o u p l e s 19 M e d i e v a l s i r e n s a n d m e r m a i d s 21 F a b u l o u s b e a s t s a n d m a m m a l h y b r i d s 32 1. Tome: m a r i n e h y b r i d s i n l a t e f i ft e e n t h - c e n t u r y b o o k d e c o r a t i o n 37 2. Tomb: Marine hybrids on Venetian f u n e r a r y m o n u m e n t s 61 3. Temple: T h e C h u r c h o f S a n ta M a r i a d e i M i r a c o l i

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4. Triumph: M a r i n e h y b r i d s a t c e n t e r s o f p o w e r 113 T h e P a l a z z o D u c a l e 113 T h e f l a g s t a f f b a s e s i n P i a z z a S a n M a r c o 129 T h e c a m e r i n i d ’a l a b a s t r o a t F e r r a r a 141 5 . Ta b l e : Bronze sea monsters for p r i v a t e h o m e s 155 Concluding remarks

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n o t e s 185 A p p e n d i x : P i e t r o C o n ta r i n i ’s d e s c r i p t i o n o f t h e S a n Ma rco fl agpole ba se s, or igina l L atin t e x t f r o m h i s A r g o a V o l u p t a s , V e n i c e , 1 5 4 1 226 B i b l i o g r a p h y 229 v

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139. Venice, Palazzo Ducale, courtyard with loggia and Scala dei Giganti.

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4 trIuMPH: M A r I n e H y b r I d s At centers of Power

A

THE PALAZZO DUCALE

s the doge and patrician officials of Venice walked under the porticoes lining the inner courtyard of the Palazzo Ducale (fig.139), they could have looked up at a festival of fantastic antiquarian creatures. These were the fruits of a renovation begun under the direction of the great sculptor-architect Antonio Rizzo, following the 1483 fire that had burned the east wing of the palace. Rizzo designed the majestic stone staircase, known after 1567 as the Scala dei Giganti, leading up to the ducal apartments in the east wing, upon which state visitors ascended to the palace and Doges were crowned. He also directed the team that began in 1484 to rebuild the ground floor porticoes and the palace wing above them. The staircase, the section of the east wing toward San Marco, and the east façade of the palace were largely complete before Rizzo fled Venice, accused of embezzlement, in 1498.1 The carvers of capitals for the loggia piers may have been among the Lombards who flocked to Venice in the late fifteenth century to meet a vast demand for stoneworkers. Some may also have worked in the later 1480s for Rizzo’s rival, Pietro Lombardo, at the church of Santa Maria dei Miracoli (fig. 130).2

140. Venetian or Lombard, c. 1490, Stonemasons at work, capital on north wing of Scala dei Giganti, Istrian stone; Venice, Palazzo Ducale.

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141. Venetian or Lombard, late 1480s, Hippocamp carrying nereid with V Shield, capital north of Scala dei Giganti, Istrian stone, Venice, Palazzo Ducale.

The relief of two men carving a column, on the capital of a pier supporting the north wing of the Scala dei Giganti (fig. 140), seems a sort of signature of the team that worked on the courtyard project.

The palace courtyard piers are faced with Istrian stone, a humbler material than the various marbles used for Rizzo’s staircase and the delicate reliefs that decorate it.3 An encompassing program for the dozens of carvings on the capitals, each of which presented eight sides for decoration, is at best elusive and probably non-existent. There is certainly no attempt to recreate the encyclopedic series of capitals of the exterior loggia of the palace, carved in the fourteenth century, with their medieval themes worthy of a cathedral: virtues and vices, exemplary kings and sages, months of the year, planets, trades, ages and races of man, and an occasional hybrid creature.4 On the interior cortile capitals, there is instead an effort to enrich the new wing of the palace with modern, that is, antiquarian motifs. The nudity of the two carvers in fig.140, contrasting with the heavily clothed medieval stonecarvers on the exterior portico, even seems to invite identification between the stonemasons of the 1480s and the masters of antiquity.

142. Venetian or Lombard, c. 1500, Putto with sea bull, seventh capital south of Scala dei Giganti, Istrian stone, Venice, Palazzo Ducale.

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Many of the reliefs seem to present generic ancient subjects. Ubiquitous putti ride dolphins, hippocamps, and other hybrids. There are harpies, leafy masks, horses, and dolphins with vine-scroll tails. Yet the subjects cannot be summarily dismissed as random selections from the treasury of fantastic antiquarian and medieval imagery that circulated, for instance, in architects’ books of drawings (fig. 77).

Many, like the Medusa masks, must have had apotropaic significance, chosen as charms against evil.5 Other capitals proclaim the nature and power of the Venetian state. The relief bust of Doge Agostino Barbarigo appears under a baldachin beneath a radiant sun, glorifying a living doge with an audacity mitigated by the small size of the portrait. Trophies with heaped helmets, shields, and swords allude to Venetian claims to the mantle of the Roman Empire, a theme also implicit in the ornamental panels on the Scala dei Giganti and the palace facade.6 Along with these come ducal crowns, shields probably once painted with ducal arms, and back-to-back lynxes referring to statecraft, with its need for sharpeyed vigilance.7 One hippocamp on a capital north of the staircase, datable c. 1486 by its commemoration of Doge Marco Barbarigo, carries a sort of marine amazon, a female nude with a shield marked V for Venezia, vittoria or both (fig. 141).

The seventh capital south of the staircase wing, carved perhaps as late as 1501, celebrates the sea, with marine hybrids or water creatures on each face.8 On the side facing the palace wall, a triton sounds a shell trumpet; moving clockwise we encounter a putto struggling with a sea bull (fig. 142); another standing on a sea turtle; a crab overlapping a fish-tailed couple, the male holding a net and dragging his mate by the hair (fig. 143); a putto holding a sail as he rides a dolphin; a putto threatening a sea goat with a stick, a piping triton whose putto rider plays a tambourine (fig. 144); and a winged putto holding up a turtle for the admiration of the hippocamp on which he rides (fig. 145).

The figures in this last relief are carved with remarkable sensitivity. The steed, turning to look backward, may owe something to sea hybrids in similar action on Roman sarcophagi and friezes (e. g. figs. 10, 23). But the way he twists and arches his graceful neck to neigh back in excitement also recalls the spiraling seahorses that pull Neptune’s chariot in a drawing of c. 1500/04 by Leonardo da Vinci (fig. 146). The carver may have learned from earlier horse drawings by Leonardo that circulated in Venice.9 If not, he approaches Leonardo in the portrayal of expressive equine movement. Telling in antiquarian language of the vitality and bounty of the sea as the nurturing force of Venetian glory, the reliefs on this capital are forerunners of the bronze flagpole bases in Piazza San Marco discussed below.

143. Venetian or Lombard, c. 1500, Hybrid couple and crab, seventh capital south of Scala dei Giganti, Istrian stone, Venice, Palazzo Ducale.

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144. Venetian or Lombard, c. 1500, Putto and triton playing music, seventh capital south of Scala dei Giganti, Istrian stone, Venice, Palazzo Ducale.

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145. Venetian or Lombard, c. 1500, Putto with sea turtle on hippocamp, seventh capital south of Scala dei Giganti, Istrian stone, Venice, Palazzo Ducale.

146. Leonardo da Vinci, Neptune Driving His Chariot, c. 1503/4, black chalk, 251 × 391 mm Windsor Castle, The Royal Collection. Š 2008 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

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147. Venetian or Lombard, c. 1485/1486, Mermaid, detail of capital in loggia north of Scala dei Giganti, Istrian stone, Venice, Palazzo Ducale.

One of the loveliest marine hybrids among the cortile reliefs appears early in the procession of piers, on a capital north of the staircase, datable c. 1485/86 by an inscription with the name of Doge Marco Barbarigo. On the face toward San Marco is a young double-tailed mermaid (fig. 147, pl. 31), with long hair drifting on an implicit breeze toward the Piazza. Her design unites the medieval siren’s pose, familiar in the churches of Lombardy (fig. 38) from whence so many of the carvers came, with a lower body apparently derived from an ancient Messinese coin of Skylla (fig. 148). On the capital horror gives way to grace. The girdle of dogs turns into harmless floating fins and the murderous club-wielding arms serve instead to lift her spiraling tails, as she takes her place among symbols of the sea.

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