Venice in Rome. Palazzo San Marco with its magnificence, erudition and collecting

SERIES: One square, so many stories series - Under the aegis of Edith Gabrielli, director of VIVE
SPEAKER: Linda Borean
DATE: Tuesday 14 March, 6 pm
PLACE: Palazzo Venezia, Sala del Refettorio

In 1564, Pope Pius IV gave Palazzo San Marco – today’s Palazzo Venezia, constructed a century earlier by the Venetian Pope Paul II – to the Republic of Venice. This act fell within the scope of the complicated relations between a city-state that accepted no interference in its role as an open capital and a sovereign reality bearing the trappings of sanctity that was appearing on the historical stage. Venice was to be responsible for completing the building and its maintenance so it was not exactly an unselfish gift, perhaps rather a poisoned chalice? The Palazzo was the place from which power was wielded over the city and a fortress but also a gem because from its foundation and throughout the following centuries it was home to rich art and antiquity collections amassed by Venetian cardinals, from Pietro Barbo to the Grimani family, in a fertile axis of cultural exchange between Rome and the Republic of Venice.

Biography

Linda Borean is a professor of the History of Modern Art at the Università di Udine where she is director of the Department of Humanistic Studies and of the Cultural Heritage. 
Her research focuses on the art culture in Venice from the Renaissance to Neoclassicism, with a special interest in aspects of the clientele and collecting, and their entanglement with figurative production and historiography. From 2002 to 2009, in collaboration with the Getty Research Institute, she co-coordinated the Il Collezionismo d’arte a Venezia dalle origini all’Ottocento project.  Since 2017 she has been on the scientific committee of the Gallerie dell’Accademia di Venezia. 

01 05