Corporate Colors: Bonifacio and Tintoretto at the Palazzo dei Camerlenghi in Venice

Philip Cottrell, whose doctoral research focused on the Venetian painter Bonifacio de' Pitati (1487-1553), has previously written on the development of the pastoral sacra conversazione in Renaissance Venice. He has recently edited Inferno: The St. Andrews Journal of Art History and currently lectures at Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College [Department of Visual Studies, Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College, High Wycombe Campus, Queen Alexandra Road, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, UK HP11 2JZ].

Frequently Cited Sources

Boschini, Marco, La Ricche Minere della Pittura (Venice, 1664).

Calabi, Donatella, "Il tesoro dei Camerlenghi," in Rialto: Le fabbriche e il ponte 1514-1591, by Donatella Calabi and Paolo Morachiello (Turin: Einaudi, 1987), 79-90.

Faggin, Giorgio, "Bonifacio ai Camerlenghi," Arte Veneta 17 (1963): 79-95.

Hamilton, Paul, "The Palazzo dei Camerlenghi in Venice," Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 42, no. 3 (1983): 258-71.

Kleinschmidt, Irene, "Gruppenvotivbilder venezianischer Beamter (1550-1630) im Palazzo dei Camerlenghi und im Dogenpalast," Arte Veneta 31 (1977): 104-18.

Ludwig, Gustav, "Bonifazio di Pitati da Verona, eine archivalische Untersuchung," Jahrbuch der Koniglich Preussischen Kunstsammlungen 22 (1901): 61-78, 180-200; 23 (1902): 36-66.

Moschini Marconi, Sandra, Gallerie dell'Accademia di Venezia, vol. 1, Opere d'arte dei secoli XIV e XV (Rome: Liberia dello Stato, 1955), vol. 2, Opere d'arte di secolo XVI (Rome: Liberia dello Stato, 1962).

Notes

This article was put together with the aid of research carried out in Venice and the Veneto generously subsidized by the Carnegie Trust for Scotland and the Russell Trust of the University of St. Andrews. I would like to express my sincere thanks to the following: Peter Humfrey, Tom Nichols, Mauro Lucco, Roberto Fontanari, Susanna Voltarel, Fiona Colclough, Sara and Vanessa Malandrin, Chiara Maida, and the staff of the Corte dei Conti (Palazzo dei Camerlenghi) and the Gallerie dell 'Accademia in Venice.

(1.) The literature dealing with the structure of the Palazzo dei Camerlenghi is meager, encompassing a technical notice in Societa Anonima Costruzioni Cemento Compreso, anno 1 (June 1932), no. 2 (a copy is in the Soprintendenza dei Monumenti, Palazzo Ducale, Venice, Palazzo dei Camerlenghi file); an article by Paul Hamilton from 1983; and a chapter devoted to the building in a wider study of the Rialto area from 1987 by Donatello Calabi.

(2.) As for the decoration of the building's interior, the first real research was carried out by the German archivist Gustav Ludwig in a discussion of Bonifacio's contribution that formed part of a wider analysis of the artist's work published in three parts in 1901-2. This still constitutes the starting point for anyone interested in the topic. Ludwig's findings were revised by Giorgio Faggin in an article from 1963 that acts as a useful critique of Bonifacio's stylistic development and includes a register of Bonifacio's works from the Camerlenghi. This is, however, incomplete and contains a few errors. An interesting account of Tintoretto's contribution was provided by Irene Kleinschmidt in a further article from 1977, but her hypotheses concerning the positioning of his works within the rooms of the Camerlenghi di Comun are insupportable, as a result of an apparent ignorance of the actual dimensions of these chambers. With their summaries of citations and inclusion of technical information, the first two volumes of Sandra Moschini Marconi's catalogue of the Accademia published in 1955 and 1962 remain the most valuable reference source in terms of reconstructing the layout of the Camerlenghi scheme.