"Illuminating the Serenissima: Books of the Republic of Venice"
2011-05-03 until 2011-06-19
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
Boston, MA, USA United States of America

La Serenissima, or the Most Serene Republic of Venice, existed for over a millennium from the late seventh century to 1797. At the height of its power in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, it was the center of an empire extending from mainland Italy to the eastern Mediterranean. The head of state was a Doge elected for life by the nobility, whose privilege and duty it was to manage Venice's political affairs. Books, called commissioni, contained the contracts of Venetian noblemen elected by their peers to oversee the Republic’s provinces usually for sixteen months, or to be lifelong administrators of the city of Venice. From the second half of the fifteenth century until the fall of the Republic, office-holders had their commissioni elaborately written, illuminated, and bound by hand, and conserved them for posterity. Commemorating service to the state, personal achievement, and taste, these manuscripts were objects of privilege, power, and beauty.

Illuminating the Serenissima: Books of the Republic of Venice draws attention to this distinctly Venetian category of book through a presentation of seven illuminated and finely bound manuscripts, collected by Isabella Gardner and recently the object of new research. These seven form part of a group of twenty Venetian manuscripts in the Gardner’s collection.

"Commissioni are important to the study of Venetian art and history, because they are dated sources of styles of illumination, bookbinding, and iconography, as well as of heraldry, portraiture, and biographical information about their owners," says Anne-Marie Eze, Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Curatorial Fellow at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and the exhibition’s curator. "Though thousands were produced under the Republic, commissioni are intrinsically rare because only two copies of each were ever made: one deposited in the ducal chancellery and the other presented to the officer-elect."

Based on new research into Isabella Gardner as bibliophile and the rare books she collected, Illuminating the Serenissima reveals hidden treasures of the collection which are ordinarily kept shut in bookcases in the museum's Long Gallery and therefore off-limits to the public. The exhibition shows the evolution over three centuries of styles of illuminating and binding of commissioni through the finest examples from Gardner’s collection of Venetian manuscripts.

"We are excited to reveal a seldom seen part of the Gardner’s collection," says Anne Hawley, the Norma Jean Calderwood Director of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. "This exhibition not only boasts beautiful objects that are usually inaccessible to visitors, but further illustrates Isabella Gardner’s passion for Venetian art and history."

Isabella Gardner acquired four of the books displayed with thirteen other Venetian manuscripts in 1903 from her friend Charles Eliot Norton (1827-1908), Harvard's first professor of art history, a Dante scholar and expert book collector. Concerned that his cherished collection would be dispersed and the books taken apart for their lucrative illuminations and bindings, Norton sold them to Isabella Gardner whom, their correspondence shows, he believed was the only American collector cultivated enough to appreciate their artistic and historical value as a collection. "I am glad to think of the Manuscripts as in your possession," wrote Norton to Gardner on the completion of the sale, "and safe from destruction by fire."

Intact commissioni are rare in American libraries and museums, where single illuminated leaves or fine bindings without their pages are more commonly found. Kept closed in covered bookcases—and so protected from damaging exposure to light—for over a century, the Gardner Museum’s collection of commissioni is in a remarkable state of preservation. Just one object received conservation treatment in preparation for the exhibition: a rare eighteenth-century repoussé and chased silver binding with a depiction of Venice as Justice personified, which had never been cleaned since its arrival in the museum at the end of the nineteenth century.

"Cleaning the covers reduced grime and tarnish built up over at least one hundred years," says Holly Salmon, Associate Objects Conservator at the Gardner Museum, who spent ten hours cleaning the upper cover and seal of the book. "Now the binding’s overall appearance is brighter and details of the beautiful silversmithing are more visible."

In fact, Eze discovered a previously unnoticed maker's mark on the binding's covers, which will hopefully result in future identification of the unknown silversmith and other examples of his fine work.

The title of the exhibition, Illuminating the Serenissima, refers both to the use of luminous colors (especially gold and silver) to decorate the opening pages and bindings of the commissioni, and to the books' enlightenment of the past glory of the Republic of Venice. The exhibition shows examples of the decorative styles and techniques of renowned Venetian illuminators and binders of the Renaissance, including Leonardo Bellini (active ca. 1443-1490), the T. Ve. Master (active 1520s-1560s), and the Mendoza Binder (active 1518-1555), as well as by anonymous seventeenth and eighteenth-century masters.

Related Links:

Indepth Arts Resources for the State of Massachusetts

Other Important Exhibitions in United States