Scandal at the Biennale: in an article in the July 1966 issue, Hugh Honour looked back at the early days of the Venice Biennale

Apollo, March, 2005 by Hugh Honour

The first Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte della Citta di Venezia--to give the Biennale its full name--was opened on 30 April 1895, in the presence of the King of Italy, Umberto I. Two years had then passed since a group of artists, over coffee and brandy at Florian's, had formulated the idea of a series of biennial exhibitions and 'sold' it to the Venice City Council. A commission was formed, including Antonio Dal Zotto, the sculptor of Goldoni in Campo San Bartolomeo, Marius de Maria, then a very fashionable land- and sea-scape painter, and Count Nicolo Papadopoli--to add aristocratic tone, presumably. From the beginning they decided that the exhibition should be international in scope (the original idea was to give half the available space to Italians and the other half to artisti stranieri) and that it should be made up of works which a select number of artists were invited to contribute ... A place was then found for an exhibition hall in the public gardens, on the site of a small stable used by the cavalry and a building which had long housed an elephant called Toni (this would have been more prophetic had Toni been white and not grey). The pavilion, designed by the municipal engineer in collaboration with Marius de Maria, who was responsible for its curious Ionic facade, consisted of nine rooms ranged around a central hall ...

No sooner had the pictures begun to arrive than a whisper went round Venice that one of them was highly indecent--Giacomo Grosso's II Supremo Convegno, which represented a group of juicy nudes frolicking on the open coffin of some dead libertine. Wondering where to hang this problem piece, or whether, indeed, to show it at all, the committee sought advice from a number of people, including the eminent and staunchly Catholic novelist Antonio Fogazzaro. Although they approved of the work, the Church took fright and the Patriarch--later Pope Plus X--begged the committee to withdraw it from exhibition. As a compromise, II Supremo Convegno was given a room to itself, placed on a revolving stand and guarded by a policeman who could switch it out of sight to save the blushes of any prude who strayed in. Nevertheless, the Patriarch banned priests, monks and nuns from visiting the exhibition ... The scandal was reported in the Press throughout Italy and even north of the Alps, giving free publicity as widespread as it was valuable--and unmerited. Further trouble lay ahead, for it had been decided that a premio popolare of 1,000 lire, about 40 [pounds sterling] at the rate of exchange at that time, was to go to the artist whose work was judged best by popular referendum. Inevitably, Grosso won by a huge majority, provoking another storm of protests from the pious. Eventually the wretched picture was bought by a company which arranged for it to tour the United States but it was destroyed by fire soon after crossing the Atlantic.