After our walking tour in Vicenza, I am thinking hard about Palladio's use of color. The presentation in the Palladio Museum's Sala di Venezia specifically mentions red striping the church of San Giorgio. Well, we're in Venezia now, and I'm part of an ongoing conversations this the tour's Director about color in Il Redentore as well.
So now I'm anxious to return to both, two of my favorite buildings anywhere. On both of my previous visits (2017, 2023), I've always seen them together, so in my mind they are a pair – like siblings more than cousins.
Basilica di San Giorgio Maggiore
The Basilica di San Giorgio Maggiore (1566-1610) is a brief vaporetto ride across the Canale della Giudecca, from Zaccaria to San Giorgio. It is one of the most beautiful boat rides I can recall, because we leave near the Palazzo Ducale and the Campanile, with the Basilica of Santa Maria della Salute (Baldassare Longhena, 1631-87) on our right and arrive right at the Basilica – an astounding sequence.
The Basilica's facade is a white classical mask in front of its brick body – great town for masks. From Zaccaria, the vaporetto slowly rotates from east to west and reveals the full width of the facade (above).
To fully consider the issue of color, I find and review this presentation given at the Palladio Museum by Mario Piana (Aug 26th, use YouTube's caption-translation). The slides include close-up photos of the restoration work inside the Basilica showing the traces of red pigment, especially around the termali in the clerestory (YouTube below).
As shown on the model during our Vicenza walk, the red is on the termali, across the main arches, around the entablature and pilasters of the drum, and the minor order column shafts at the transepts. This is clearly shown in this graphic from the Museum's "Palladio 500 Anni" show (also explained in this audioguide). I've added pictures from this Tripadvisor review below.
Of course, those are brick piers finished in marmarino, and there may be more honesty in showing the 'brick color'. In Piana's lecture, he quotes the master builder (M° Antonio or Antonio Paleari di Marcò) as differentiating between "pietre fregade" (dressed stone), "pietra cotta" (baked stone or brick), and "piere cotte et fregarli" (cut and dressed bricks).
PalladioMuseum YouTube channel
Piana reports that in 1652, Longhena receives a contract "dell'opera si deve fare per nettar et bianchizar" (clean and whiten) the interior of San Giorgio:
Prima bianchizar tutta essa chiesa et choro, si volti, muraglie et altro li sarà ordinato in detta chiesa.Secondo far tutti li volti svazadi sotto li felzi et mezze lune et altri volti in essa chiesa et questi dandoli la sua tenta fingendoli di pietra viva, parte sono al presente di essa tenta, et anco tutti gli altri volti al presente sono rossi, quelli siino finti di pietra viva con una e più mano con ogni diligenza acciò imitino la pietra viva.Tertio tutte le colone, pilastri et altro sono in detta chiesa hora rossi, quelli siano dati di bianco una e più volte a cola acciò restano bianchissimi conforme li sarà ordinato.First, to whiten the entire church and choir, including the vaults, walls and anything else that will be ordered in the said church.Secondly, to clean all the vaulted ceilings under the arches and lunettes and other vaults in the said church, and to give them a coat of paint imitating live stone; some are currently painted in this way, and also all the other vaults that are currently red, should be painted to imitate live stone with one or more coats with all diligence so that they imitate live stone.Thirdly, all the columns, pillars and other elements in the said church that are now red, should be painted white one or more times with glue so that they remain very white as will be ordered. [Google Translate]
Piana includes pictures of the reddish residue and sections of colored brick. A more convincing case is hard to imagine – Palladio's design calls for those red features.
The red is very much the dusky, earthy red of the Ponte Vecchio di Bassano, or the flag of Venezia (top image). I've made a crude photo-sketch (below, click image & use arrow keys to change) of how the church might look (adjusted white balance & tint for the clerestory). It looks somehow more primitive, like 'early' Renaissance rather than the 'late' or like Filippo Brunelleschi's use of the pietra serena. With the red, the space is bundled together, and at the same time, segmented. Without, that luminescence moves over the unobstructed geometry lifting the vaults and the dome.
However, I am sure the pulvino (pulvinated frieze, which I compared to Redentore's) or any of the classical components (dressed stone) would not have taken pigment (as noted in our last visit). And I suspect the red might have been overwhelming under the minor order vaults on either side of the presbiterio, as all arches, the termali, and the column shafts would have been red.
On the other hand, the model and the graphic do not show this color program going any further than the transept, except that all the termali have the pigment – the minor order pilasters do not. I try to image how much color would be involved if the pilasters did have color; it's a lot.
Considering all the windows should be red, the tone and illumination of the space would shift significantly. For example, the coro space behind the great organ contains the carved wood seating – and we can see the quality of the light back there is markedly different because of the dark wood (it looks reddish).
To confirm this, we make our way toward the coro, where in the past only the monks would have gone. We exit the Basilica and pass the old angel that once stood on top of the campanile. I realize how much metalwork is in the wings, and that the figure is made of blocks and covered with copper. Nearby, a video shows the large canvasses by Tiepolo on either side of the chancel being removed.
Then we re-renter the Basilica at the north door of the coro. The back of the organ is is also painted a deep red. Turning, I note the dim tone of the stalls and the orange glow all around. On the other side, the color is distinctly more blond. But of course, it's still early, and the light will change throughout the day.
After processing Piana's evidence, and then walking in the Basilica, I am still pondering new insights, and thinking about Palladio's use of color, especially as it relates to geometry and light.
Meanwhile, the tour crosses the campo to the gate of the Fondazione Cini, which occupies the former monastero.
Fondazione Cini
The entrance of the Fondazione Giorgio Cini brings us right to the Chiostro Palladiano (c1566). The Ionic columns are double-deep, like at the Basilica Palladiana, giving the long arcade strength and openness. We turn at the central bays, and the column capitals are the Scamozzi type, as we saw in Vicenza.
As I'm still thinking about color, the walls are a light rose.
Here, they are being employed by Baldassare Longhena, who is the architect of these Scalone del Longhena (1643-45). Longhena not only picks up the contract for the chiesa, but the monastero as well, and is responsible for many projects here, from about 1641 to 1480.
The Scalone is a lovely split staircase and Corinthian loggia. It is filled with statues of 'powerful' female figures (Giovanni Battista Paliari, 1637-45), such as the central "Allegoria di Venezia".
We go upstairs and continue along south side of the "Nuova Manica Lunga", the long line of connected cloisters. In the middle and to the east is the Biblioteca di Longhena (1641-46). This is a long wide connecting hallway with beautiful bookcases by Franz Pauc, and home to the Fondazione's fifteenth and sixteenth century book collection.
The room is currently showing an exhibit for "Venezia e le Epidemie"; note the books under the cases.
I am reminded of the Cattedrale Santa Maria Assunta (Longhena, rebuilt c1633), which we recently saw in Chioggia.
We continue along the "Nuova Manica Lunga" to the Antico Dormitorio dei Padri Benedettini (Giovanni Buora, 1448-56), which is now the Biblioteca di Buora (Michele De Lucchi, converted 2010) and home to the L'Archivio della Sedrim.
These stacks fill a hall double the length of the cloisters; I can see the window openings at the far end, so it must pass behind the apse of the Basilica and go nearly to the lagoon. On either side of the stacks, the old dormitories are intact, with passages between and under the tacks. and used as office and other workspaces.
Our guide leads us downstairs and into the Chiostro dei Cipressi (1517-26), also known as the Chiostro di Buora. The yard is about the same size as the Chiostro Palladiano to the west, but the arcade is just a single column. The capital is an 'archaic' Ionic with a tall, fluted collar and fish scales between the volutes.
Instead of the rosey tint, the walls here are a creamy off-white.
Our guide now heads for the southwest corner, where a tall arch leads into a vestibule. We are just about directly under the entrance to the Biblioteca di Longhena, I think. But this passage leads to the west.
Before going up the stairs, we go around to the right, and into a lower gallery, the 'Sala della Fotographie', The photographs on display are of the Monastero during the war, when the cloisters were in ruin and the island was a munitions depot.
We realize just how much effort has gone into restoring the buildings and bring the place back to life.
Refettorio del Monastero
Now we return and go up the stairs to the heroic doorway that leads to the Refettorio Palladiano del Monastero (1560-63), known as the 'Cenacolo Palladiano'. The thick entablature is held by thin brackets. We first reach a foyer space with wash basins and another enormous doorway with a few more steps up.
The Cenacolo is a tall barrel-vaulted room with arched windows with thick surrounds like the doorways, and a cornice with modiglioni broken at a central cross vault. At the far end is an enormous canvas by Paolo Veronese, a digital recreation of the "Nozze di Cana" (1563).
The list of guests is numerous and impressive (incl Daniele and Marcantonio Barbaro). The original canvas was taken by Napoleon in 1797 and never repatriated (despite treaty); it is still one of the largest in the collection of the Louvre (267×391 in).
We cross the Chiostro Palladiano on the way out. I notice that the corner pier is made with five Ionic columns, four half-round and one three-quarters at the turn of the arcade. At the inside corner, there is a fine, double-story pilaster to a chunky cornice with modiglioni. At the outside corner, under the arcade, there is another angulated capital, as we saw in Vicenza.
I stand back and look at the light hitting those thin pilasters and the contrast created by the modiglioni. Behind the Chiostro are the forms of the Basilica, and the bell chamber and spire of the campanile. Under the arcade, the arches and the capitals cast shadows that look like waves. And the color, blown out by the sun, is not so far from the color of the bricks.
The Monastero is much more than I imagined (map with labels); it's another place where the tour feels rushed. I want to spend more time time looking at the architecture and thinking about design – how an edge catches light, how a building turns a corner. But the day offers many more opportunities, as well, so we press on.
We board the vaporetto for Giudecca. We pass a whole other Palladio church on the way, the Le Zitelle (c1588). But it's covered with scaffolding and netting – looks like it's being converted to a resort hotel complex, "Arielles Venezia Palladio".
Despite the Franciscan in San Giorgio being a mendicant order, the Capuchins in the Basilica del Santissimo Redentore (1577-92) take the ascetic life to a new level. Surely, the Capuchins would not want color in their church.
A lively back and forth with the tour Director follows. I try my theory about the white frieze band, how that strip of white allows a separation between the structure of the columns and piers, and the surfaces of the vaults. This creates the weightlessness that makes Il Redentore special. I'm not sure if he's needling me or maybe just holding out the possibility, but he thinks the white frieze band maybe could have been red.
I spend the rest of my time in the church trying to make the frieze red, and I cannot; I won't even simulate it. Piana's slides did not offer any evidence that there was color in Il Redentore and I refuse to believe it. At the risk of embedding too much media in one post, below are views of both churches for comparison:
[360º view from Google Maps]
I am trying to think of other recent examples where an architect used a white banded frieze, distinct from a stone architrave and cornice, and came up with these:
- Brunelleschi at the Basilica di San Lorenzo
- Giuliano da Sangallo at the Sagrestia at Santo Spirito
- Michelangelo at the Sagrestia Nuova at San Lorenzo
- Longhena to similar effect at the Cattedrale in Chioggia
But none of these use to the frieze to the same effect – allowing the undecorated vault and dome to float above it – better images are in my 2023 post with the afternoon sun.
We make a stop in the sagrestia, where the public is typically not permitted, but photos are also not allowed. The room contains a collection of wax heads and reliquaries that some might find disturbing. They remind me of the Franciscan and Capuchin interest in the momento mori.
It also contains paintings by Leandro Bassano, Alvise Vivarini, and Paolo Caliari. Unfortunately, the room is a bit small for our group. But this affords a peek into the coro, which is spare and white, without the fancy stalls as at San Giorgio.
Giardino del Convento
After the two churches, the tour retreats to the Giardino del Convento dei Cappuccini and takes lunch at the small cafe inside. The Giardino is relaxing and peaceful – but outward-looking, with stunning views of the lagoon. It's very different than the Fondazione behind San Giorgio, which feels formal, scholarly, and remote.
Back on the canal side, the waters are full of sail boats. There is a regatta this afternoon, the Venice Hospitality Challenge.
We walk out to the vaporetto dock and get ready to cross the Canal to Zattere. Zattere translates to 'rafts' and is where, during the Festa del Redentore, a temporary ponte di barche connects the island of Giudecca with the Dorsoduro.
Convento della Carità
From Zattere, we walk north to the Gallerie dell'Accademia. A large portion of the Gallerie is housed in the Convento della Carità, a project started by Palladio in 1561, but damaged by fire in 1630 and never completed – this was also represented in the Palladio Museum's Sala di Venezia. Just one side of the peristilio, a recreation of the east facade, dates from the nineteenth century. It is a cross between the Basilica and the Capitaniato in Vicenza, a two-story brick arcade of Doric and Ionic, plus a Corinthian attic.
The column bases, capitals, and other details are in stone. Piana also explains the unusual, inverted keystones in the architraves (time 46:46 of the video) as having a Roman origin (the "Portici di Pompeio"). I look closely at the bricks above the Doric capital and see that they are: a standard running bond keyed inward at the top, a row of soldiers that key outward at the top, then the stone block above the arch (which has no keystone). It's a fascinating expression of the forces within the lintel.
The composition is curious for the short bays one either side, which I assume would have been within into the arcades on the north and south sides (with no 'fake' jagged bricks) – so seven bays, except at the ground level, where a bay is lost to a terrazza on the piano nobile. I try to confirm this but get confusing comparisons from these sources:
- the floor plan from I Quattro Libri (1581, Book 2, page 30);
- the floor plan from the English translation (1738, Book 2, page 45 – is a mirror of 1581;
- the floor plan from Octavio Berlotti Scamozzi (1783), is a rotation of 1581 (?);
- the ground floor map of the Gallerie dell'Accademia.
Given the relationship with the Chiesa and the streets, I think the 1738 plan is correct, placing the terrazza on the south side – but who knows. If this is true, then the lovely Doric sagrestia that is currently being restored is also in the correct orientation, as is the amazing, elliptical spiral stair. Both spaces are off-limits to the public, but our guide opens them for us – a true privilege.
The "Portici di Pompeio" is also mentioned in I Quattro Libri, in Book 1 on stairs (with examples in section on the previous pages):
THERE were also in the portico's of POMPEY in Rome, going into the piazza Giudea, three winding stair-cases of a very laudible invention, because being placed in the middle, where they could receive no light but from above, they were made upon columns, that the light might spread equally every where. [Andrea Palladio, "The Four Books of Architecture", trans Isaac Ware, London, 1738]
Before we leave, our Director takes us up to 'Sala X' to see another large Veronese canvas, the "Convito in Casa di Levi" (1573). The scene is a sequel to the "Nozze di Cana" in the Cenacolo and started as a 'Last Supper' before the Inquisition demanded a change. Ten years on and Veronese's architectural expression is stronger, especially if the intent is to place us at the table with the subjects. And his representation of Christ is much more clear at the center, less 'lost in the crowd'. But the incredible mix of people, and the raucous atmosphere are still there.
The painting is slightly too wide for the gallery, so the walls are shaved out to accommodate the work, resulting in the creases at the upper frame.
The day is doing its work; my thinking on Palladio and his use of color is irrevocably changed. But I will never be convinced about Il Redentore. It is fixed in my mind as tutti bianco.
Chiesa di Santa Maria dei Miracoli
The tour itinerary has our last stop as the Basilica dei Friari, but I think there are tired members. So we head back toward the hotel and walk the shorter distance to the Chiesa id Santa Maria dei Miracoli (Pietro Lombardo, 1481-89). If I had qualms about color, I set them all aside for this church.
The Chiesa is built to keep a small 'miraculous' icon, the "Vergine di Niccolò di Pietro" (c1408), which is now in the altarpiece. The date of the church places it in the early Renaissance, as underscored by the square and half-circle facade. But the materiality and the decorative quality are firmly medieval – the veining in the marble panels dazzles like Gothic stained glass.
No comments:
Post a Comment