Architektur and Ornament: Venezianischer Bauschmuck der Renaissance. - book review

WOLFGANG WOLTERS

Architektur and Ornament: Venezianischer Bauschmuck der Renaissance

Munich: C. H. Beck, 2000. 320 pp.; 166 color ills., 191 b/w. DM 140

Wolfgang Wolters's new book takes its cue from the often overlooked pages on door design, painted decoration, and ceiling ornament at the end of Sebastiano Serlio's book 4 on the orders, first published in Venice in 1537. On painted decoration, for instance, Serlio declared:

I say that the architect must not only assume responsibility for the ornaments as far as the stones and marbles are concerned, but also for the painting as decoration for the walls. He must be the man who gives the orders, namely the master of all those who work on the building. (1)

It is the concept of the architect as "master of all those who work on the building" that drives Wolters's investigation. He seeks to rescue the material substance and decorative details of Venetian Renaissance architecture from their current marginal status and restore them to their due prominence.

Wolters had already revealed his interest in decorative schemes in his first book, Plastische Deckendekorationen des Cinquecento in Venedig und im Veneto, published in 1968. This fundamental work of scholarship remains the authoritative catalogue of Renaissance Venice's elaborately coffered ceilings. His magisterial two-volume study La scultura veneziana gotica followed in 1976. Among many other writings, he also contributed the architecture and sculpture sections of Venedig: Die Kunst der Renaissance: Architektur, Skulptur, Malerei 1460-1590 (1986), an invaluable textbook written in collaboration with Norbert Huse.

The present book breaks new ground, unearthing a treasure trove of visual delights as well as a profusion of new information. Earlier academic histories of Venetian Renaissance architecture from Francesco Milizia to John McAndrew traced a path toward "correct" classicism, culminating in Andrea Palladio's mastery of classical language. According to this model, struggling to overcome the Gothic tendency toward ornamental richness, Venice eventually achieved the spatial purity and harmony of Albertian concinnitas (beauty arising from harmony of proportion). As a major printing center, the city published many of the treatises that have come to be regarded as canonical stages in this process of comprehension of the classical language of the ancients. Modernism further underlined the privileged status of pure form and championed the international victory of the classical style. Ornament that did not reflect "correct" classical language had to be apologetically explained away.

Over the past quarter of the 20th century, scholars have opened up new approaches to the study of Venetian Renaissance architecture. In the 1970s, Marxist-inspired histories began to highlight the importance of patronage. This approach was to be refined and raised to a higher intellectual plane in the seminal work of Manfredo Tafuri, exemplified by his Venezia e il Rinascimento (1985). By placing architecture in the context of its complex ideological framework-whether philosophy, science, religion, or politics-Tafuri's work has offered a challenging inspiration to his successors.

Wolters's book follows a decisively new path. Previous studies such as those by Antonio Sagredo, Andre Wirobisz, and Susan Connell had already investigated the building crafts in Renaissance Venice, while writers on vernacular architecture, notably Egle Renata Trincanato and Richard Goy, discussed the use of building materials, (2) Books have been written on individual decorative elements such as floors, wellheads, and external sculpture. This is, however, the first study to give full consideration to the role of decoration and ornament in major architect-designed projects and to relate these aspects to the theoretical content of architectural treatises. A reassessment of the role of ornament in Renaissance theory has recently been made in Alina Payne's The Architectural Treatise in the Italian Renaissance (1999), but she did not include detailed consideration of built architecture. In the present book, Wolters's perceptive insights into the relationship between theory and built architecture sustain the rigor of the discussion. His approach also encourages reconsideration of the role of those texts such as Filarete's treatise and the Hypnerotomachia poliphili, in which the richness of materials is given particular prominence.

The underlying premise of this book rests on the amount of expense and time devoted to the execution of decorative elements for Venetian buildings. Sensitive to the value of rich materials through centuries of trade, Venice should perhaps be regarded as an exceptional case in this regard. Yet Wolters's standpoint is not parochial, and his text is peppered with comparative references to artistic centers outside the Veneto. It could be argued that such an approach is long overdue for other Italian cities as well.

In the historiography of art, the tendency to separate architectural design from its decorative programs can be said to have begun with the paragoni of the cinquecento and the debates over the hierarchy of the arts. From that time onward, sculpture, painting, and architecture began to occupy separate epistemological categories, while the 'minor arts" such as metalwork and glass were relegated to a perceived lower plane of creativity. Wolters seeks to recover the true balance by focusing on all the media that contributed to architectural design. Nonetheless, the boundaries remain frustratingly blurred. For instance, in the invaluable and pioneering sections on painted decoration, well-known cycles such as the frescoes by Giorgione and Titian on the Fondaco dei Tedeschi are given only cursory treatment. This decision seems to be based not on the presence (or absence) of figural subjects but on the recognition of an existing body of information elsewhere in the literature. Some figurative frescoes in churches, s uch as Castagno's decoration of the chapel of S. Tarasio at S. Zaccaria, are briefly reviewed, while others, such as the Dominican saints in the nave of S. Pietro Martire, Murano, are omitted. Fortunately, Pordenone's newly uncovered frescoed dome of 1531 in S. Giovanni Elemosinario is discussed and illustrated. Wood inlays, or tarsie, receive merely the briefest attention, and mosaics are only included if their main role is to ornament the architectural configuration, as for instance in the sacristy of S. Marco. Organ mountings are considered, but not painted organ shutters. In short, the attempt is to recover forgotten schemes, as well as to look more closely at the embellishment of well-known architectural works, rather than to examine pictorial decoration per se.

The aim to reassess the role of materiality in the architecture of Renaissance Venice is not Wolters's only mission. He also registers a heartfelt critique of the neglect of such elements in conservation and restoration practice, a neglect that has persisted over centuries. What he calls the "galloping loss" of Venetian painted facades had been lamented by Ridolfi as early as 1648. Although Wolters's writing is always controlled and rational, the elegiac tone is thinly disguised as, again and again, he laments the unnecessary loss or illtreatment of decorative elements. The sooner this book can be translated into Italian and English the better.

The book is beautifully illustrated and designed, with numerous of its color photographs taken by the author himself. The images include many works that have been since lost, as well as a fascinating selection of drawings, often little known. Early documents and printed books provide textual evidence to inform the visual remains. The text is supported by a rich and up-to-date bibliography, which contains many useful titles in German that have not so far been incorporated into international scholarship. Wolters has consulted a remarkable range of secondary literature, many of these titles, stretching back over more than a century, now nearly forgotten. The evidence for every point made in the text can be traced to its source through the precise system of references. Although he is fastidiously cautious in his analyses of evidence--when he speculates he fully admits this--Wolters is not afraid to offer ideas on the interpretation of the subject matter of decorative elements.

The arrangement of the book is transparent and generally logical. After a statement of purpose and a general review of the importance of building materials in Venice, Wolters moves on to a survey of the current state of knowledge about the control of the architect over the design of details in Renaissance Venice. Workshop organization, the preparation of models and drawings, and the extent of the architect's control over his craftsmen are carefully analyzed. This section is crucial in keeping the architect's role in the forefront of the discussion.

The rest of the book is primarily organized according to decorative medium. Chapters follow on the cladding of walls, painted facade-decoration, ornamental stone carving, balustrades and iron grilles, painted decoration in secular buildings, the design of doors and chimneypieces, wall painting inside churches, church furnishings, windows, floors, and coffered ceilings. The conclusion is merely a Nachwort of courteous acknowledgments. A final section to draw together the threads that define the relationship between theory and practice might have provided a more memorable climax.

Because frescoes in Venice deteriorate rapidly, the sections on wall painting leave a particularly deep impression on the reader. Tragic losses include Giorgione's own house in Campo S. Silvestro containing his own frescoes and the palace facade in Campo S. Stefano painted by Tintoretto with a Saint Vitale on horseback. Intriguingly, in 1556 an unknown parish priest bequeathed a house painted with Adam and Eve to designs by Raphael. The richness of the allover painted facades of the Palazzo Trevisan on the island of Murano and the Palazzo d'Anna, known only from drawings, can do no more than hint at the full extent of painted exteriors in Renaissance Venice. All that remains of Pordenone's frescoed facade of 1531-32 for the palace of the Flemish merchant Martino d'Anna on the Grand Canal, much lauded by Vasari, is a drawing in the Victoria and Albert Museum. (3)

The reader is treated to many wonderful visual surprises, especially from the interiors of buildings not normally open to the public, such as the ceiling joists covered with painted paper still visible in a house in Campo S. Stefano and the interiors of Palazzo Trevisan (a building probably designed by Daniele Barbaro) and the Casino Mocenigo, both on Murano. The recently uncovered fresco cycle in the Scuola dei Calegheri at S. Toma is now more easily accessible, thanks to its use as a public library. The illustration and discussion of many elements from the Palazzo Grimani at S. Maria Formosa, currently undergoing restoration, prove most welcome. Wolters publishes a drawing of 1598 by the German artist Heinrich Sehickhardt, now in Stuttgart, of the remarkable illusionistic ceiling decoration by Cristoforo and Stefano Rosa formerly on the ceiling of the Madonna dell'Orto, destroyed in the 19th century. Because of the classification by medium, individual buildings receive piecemeal attention, but careful cross -referencing holds the structure together.

Wolters draws attention to other eye-opening details found in familiar buildings. How many of us have passed these without seeing them? Among such revelations he considers the ornate majolica tiles on the floor of the Cappella Lando in S. Sebastiano, the ironwork in the first-floor loggia of the Doge's Palace, and the red and white clay floor tiles in S. Giobbe. Now we shall give more attention to the stunning marble pulpit in S. Giacomo dell'Orio and seek out the delightful frescoes of birds in the branches of trees in the sacristy of S. Salvatore. The sections on wall plastering, the application of marmorino stucco, and the discussion of when whitewashed church interiors came to acquire positive aesthetic associations all make invaluable contributions to our present understanding of the field. Even the section on capitals makes clear the previous neglect of this subject; despite the prominence of the orders in most of the earlier literature, capitals that do not conform to canonical principles have been sad ly marginalized.

Perceptive allusions to the treatise literature pervade the whole book. Why, for example, did Serlio's recommendations for chimneypiece design have so little impact? Following the disapproval of spatial illusionism voiced by Vitruvius and Alberti, Serlio criticized painted decoration that dissolved the wall surface, except on ceilings, where he considered views of the sky acceptable. Pordenone's dramatic rearing horse plunging outward over the Grand Canal from the Palazzo d'Anna thus perfectly exemplifies the sort of fresco decoration that Serlio was soon to censor. Even Carlo Borromeo's Instructiones of 1577 furnished advice on details such as the design of doors.

No one involved in the field can fail to be grateful for the clarity, visual sensitivity, and meticulous scholarship that characterize this fundamental work. Wolters's new book will be of immeasurable value for many generations.

It will also enable all of us to look at Venetian Renaissance buildings with new enjoyment.

Notes

(1.) Sebastiano Serlio on Architecture, vol. 1, trans. and ed. Vaughan Hart and Peter Hicks (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996), 378.

(2.) Antonio Sagredo, Sulle consorterie delle arti edificative in Venezia (Venice, 1866); Andre Wirobisz, "L'attivita edilizia a Venezia nel XIV e XV secolo," Studi veneziani (1965): 307-43; Susan M. Connell, The Employment of Sculptors and Stonemasons in Venice in the Fifteenth Century (New York: Garland Press, 1988); Egle Renata Trincanato, Venezia minore (Milan: Edizione del Milione, 1948); Richard J. Goy, Venetian Vernacular Architecture: Traditional Housing in the Venetian Lagoon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989). Neither of the first two titles is listed in Wolters's bibliography.

(3.) Also associated with the d'Anna family is the complex of houses at S. Maria Maggiore, recently attributed to Sansovino by Manuela Morresi, for which a drawing in the Uffizi (U 203A) illustrates an elaborate scheme of painted decoration. See Morresi, Jacopo Sansovino (Milan: Electa, 2000), 327-32.

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