MINIATURES OF THE DOGES
Venice and venetians, saints and virtues in the Commissioni of the Correr Museum

From October 12th to December 7th 2012
Doge’s Palace, Sala dello Scrutinio

EXHIBITION DATE EXTENDED until 3rd March 2013

Over the course of 2012, there will be three dossier exhibitions at the Doge’s Palace, organized using items drawn from the vast and varied artistic and bibliographical collections of the Fondazione dei Musei Civici di Venezia. The exhibitions aim to explore and focus on various aspects of the Venetian Republic’s social and cultural life, in close reference to the major fresco cycles and socio-political function of the monumental architectural spaces of the splendid Doge’s Palace.

The autumn dossier exhibition will instead be dedicated to the vast collection of illuminated manuscripts of the Doges’ Promissio and Commissions. These are extremely important documents historically, but also of great beauty, and they mark the institutional milestones in the lives of the highest political post in the Most Serene Venetian Republic. These manuscripts, which range from the XIV-XVIII centuries, were written out by expert scribes. They often were decorated with splendid miniatures painted in brilliant colors, augmented with gold applied with a brush or in gold leaf, and were bound in precious bindings of stamped or painted leather, or in velvet and brocade fabrics with silver fixtures. These documents, often generically, called Commissioni, have been collected together in a single serires (labeled “Class III“), which comprises over a thousand pieces. They are belonging to diverse document typologies: the Promissioni dogali and the more numerous Commissioni conferred to representatives of the Venetian government in their territories abroad. These are joined by a few copies of Statuti or Capitolari of public magistrates and manuscripts which originated from groups in the private sector, but regolates by the State, Mariegole of the confraternities of the arts and various crafts (labeled “Class IV“).

Ideally visitor could complete the visit to the exhibition going to the Museo Correr (also in St. Mark’s Sq), to see Hall 8, which contains the magnificent library furnishings from the Palace of the Pisani family in San Vidal.

The exhibition as a whole is meant to offer the occasion to see some of the remarkable leaves inside these documents, and to present various iconographic readings of the miniatures, with some updates on the history of manuscript painting and collecting practices.

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Curators: Piero Lucchi e Camillo Tonini
Organization: Cristina Crisafulli, Rossella Granziero, Andrea Marin, Monica Viero

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Further information on these manuscripts: http://nbm.regione.veneto.it >>>