S1106 The Duke and the Doge: Comparative Studies of Cultural, Political and Religious Influences in Florentine and Venetian 16th Century Art

During the 16th century Italian sovereigns were utilizing art as a potent form of propaganda on a grander scale than ever before. The Medici had been patrons of the greatest Florentine artists from the time of Giovanni di Bicci and Cosimo il Vecchio in the early 15th century, utilizing their art for personal and dynastic aggrandizement. But the events of the early 16th century introduced a new chapter in Medici patronage. When the two young Medici candidates for the rule of Florence, Giuliano, Duke of Nemours, and Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino, died suddenly, and were buried in the tomb monuments designed for them by Michelangelo in the Cappella Medici, the continuity of dynastic succession was endangered. Once a new Cosimo was chosen from another branch of the family, artistic propaganda became crucial in fortifying his political authority and power, as a tool for personal and family eulogy and acclaim for his territorial conquests. When Giorgio Vasari painted Cosimo in a divine apotheosis on the ceiling of the grand hall of the Palazzo Vecchio, he also showed Cosimo surrounded by his court artists, among them the painter Agnolo Bronzino and the architect Montorsoli. By 1545 the Habsburg Emperor Karl V awarded him with the knighthood of the Golden Fleece, thus making him the first Medici Duke, and thus called Cosimo I.
The situation in Cinquecento Venice was quite different. The Republic was renowned for the stability of its government, with its Maggior Consiglio (Great Council) at the base of a legislative pyramidal structure, with the Doge (Duke) at its top. Unlike the Duke of Florence, the Venetian Doge was merely a ceremonial figurehead of the Serenissima, as she was called, and had no real power. But the Republic of Venice, by the 15th and 16th centuries, had expanded its territories, creating a powerful Empire on land and sea. The Basilica of San Marco, representative of Venetian ecclesiastical authority, and the Palazzo Ducale, bastion of her political supremacy, stood side by side on the shores of the Adriatic Sea, where her mercantile expansion had begun about 400 years earlier. Generations of great Venetian artists were recruited to adorn the Palazzo Ducale with allegorical paintings that extolled her conquests and praised the virtues of her government. During the 16th century Gentile and Giovanni Bellini, Titian, Tintoretto and Veronese contributed to these large scale programs in addition to paintings commissioned by the Doge, the aristocratic members of government, prelates, wealthy merchants and ecclesiastical institutions. Symbolic and allegorical depictions of Venice also decorated tombs, civic and religious architecture and monumental sculpture.
Aims of the Course
1. This course in Renaissance art-history emphasizes the importance of geographical, political, socio-economic and cultural factors in the formation and development of local Italian schools of art during the Renaissance, primarily those of Venice and Florence.
2. The comparative study will highlight differences between the two Renaissance schools, in demonstrating how locale patriotism, ideals of sovereignty and political stability, and even socio-economic policies were expressed primarily, but not exclusively, in art images geared to the public.
3. The questions treated in classroom discussions and the analysis of art works are designed to foster critical and analytic perceptions of art.