Best of ITALY

TRUTH IN TRAVEL TRUTH IN TRAVEL Best of ITALY VENICE & THE NORTH PAGE S 2–9 Venice Milan VENICE NORTHERN The Prince of Venice ITALY Viewing Titian’s paintings in their original basilicas and palazzi reveals a Venice of courtesans and intrigue. Pulitzer Prize—winning critic Manuela Hoelterhoff’s walking guide to the city amplifies the experience of reliving the tumultuous times of Florence the Old Master—and finds some aesthetically pleasing hotels and restaurants along the way. TUSCANY (Trail of Glory map on page 5) FLORENCE & TUSCANY PAGE S 10 –1 5 Best of ITALYCENTRAL ITALY TUSCAN COAST Rome Tuscany by the Sea Believe it or not, Tuscany has a shoreline—145 miles of it, with ports large and small, hidden beaches, a rich wildlife preserve, and, of course, the blessings of the Italian table. Clive Irving Naples discovers a sexy combo of coast, cuisine, and Pompeii Caravaggio—and customizes a beach-by-beach, Capri harbor-by-harbor map for seaside fun. SARDINIA SOUTHERN ITALY ROME & CENTRAL ITALY PAGE S 16–2 0 ROME Treasures of the Popes You’re in Rome, but the Vatican is a city in itself. (In fact, a nation.) What should you see? John Palermo Julius Norwich picks his masterpieces, and warns of the potency of Vatican hospitality. SICILY VENICE & THE NORTH PAGE 2 Two miles long, spanned by three bridges and six gondola ferries, the Grand Canal is an avenue of palaces built between the fourteenth and eigh- teenth centuries. A rich, luminous city, her beauty reflected at every turn, Venice was the perfect muse for an ambitious Renaissance artist. Only if he’d lived to be 100— and he did—could Titian have hoped to enhance her glory. Manuela Hoelterhoff traces his genius Photographs by Robert Polidori The of Princephotographs by Michel Figuet Venice VENICE & THE NORTH PAGE 3 The largest altarpiece Venice had ever seen, The Pietà is the work the groundbreak- ing Assumption of of a man who knew he the Virgin was would meet his Maker unveiled in Santa N MY TRIPS TO VENICE I USUALLY STOP Maria Gloriosa Dei Frari in 1518. in at the Accademia to visit with a few friends. I like this shortly and was museum because I don’t like change very much and the Ac- filled with feelings of cademia is one museum that will not be sprouting a titanium terror and awe wing by Frank Gehry. Amen. And so I went on my little tour. When I was much Oyounger, I’d make a beeline for the Saint Ursula paintings by Vittorio Carpaccio because I loved the story of the maidens who left for a pilgrimage to the Holy Titian’s last Land only to be cut down by inWdel archers somewhere near Cologne. I wanted work, the Pietà, a room like Ursula’s with a cot, an angel to talk to, and a little dog. hangs in the Acca demia. It was done in 1576, before a I moved on to Giorgione’s The Tempest handsome young man leaning on a pole plague—one of (circa 1505–06), a mysterious picture of a has turned to look toward her. Who are the worst in Venice’s histo- nude woman with a child sitting in a beau- they? What’s the story? Art historians ry—claimed tiful landscape threatened by a storm. A still puzzle over this picture. As an illus- the artist’s life. tration of the time-dissolving power of art, you have only to stand right here in front of this smallish canvas and ponder how a young artist can engage us centuries later. He was barely thirty years of age when he died, probably of the plague, which periodically savaged Venice (the word quarantine is Venetian in origin). In August 1576, another plague killed a friend of his, the most famous painter in Europe at the time, Titian—born Tiziano Vecellio in Pieve di Cadore, a little town in the Dolomites. Like Giorgione, Titian studied in the workshop of Giovanni Bellini; upon the older master’s death, he was appointed to his position of painter to the Vene tian Republic, a job that came with a huge sal- ary. His earliest works in Venice included a decorating job that he split with Gior- gione, embellishing the Fondaco dei Te- deschi, the warehouse of the German VENICE & THE NORTH PAGE 4 Important paintings were lost to fires in the 1570s, but the Presentation of the Virgin survives in the Titian liked Accademia as one of Titian’s greatest works. to downplay his wealth, hoping to pull at the heartstrings of patrons, who included kings and popes VENICE & THE NORTH PAGE 5 merchants on the Rialto. The weathered about his domestic life. He often teamed Trail of frescoes are now barely visible in their new up with Jacopo Sansovino, the sculp- THE BIRTH- home in the Ca’ d’Oro tor and architect, and PLACE . palazzo. But their his- made sure the proj- TITIAN WAS The Grand Canal is BORN IN THE tory is interesting, and ects were publicized TOWN OF we will visit them and the city’s grand by their mutual friend PIEVE DI CA- GLORY DORE, IN THE The hunt for Titian’s treasures takes you through the doors of the other works Titian avenue, an incompa- Pietro Aretino, a fat DOLOMITES, THE TITIAN the churches and palazzos that define Renaissance Venice painted during his long rable demonstration to gourmand and por- HOUSE AND life in Venice. nographer who served MUSEUM IS the outside A NATIONAL Madonna dell’Orto Nobody seems to as his press agent and MONUMENT. Boscolo Grand world of prosperity Hotel dei Dogi know just how old secretary. (We loved Santa Lucia and power Station Titian was—maybe your gift of pickled Church of 103!—when he died in fennel and spice cakes, the Gesuiti CANNAREGIO 14 his house, a handsome mansion that had he wrote on Titian’s behalf.) Titian seems G a garden down to the lagoon where he to have lied to exaggerate his age and, no- R AND Ca’ d’Oro Site of liked to entertain. He had several children tably avaricious, liked to down- 13 Titian’s C and many friends, but little else is known A House N A L v The Pesaro Altarpiece, an Rialto early Titian, SANTA CROCE Bridge Fondaco dei in the church 12 of the Frari. Tedeschi CASTELLO S A N P O L O 10 11 Osteria di Scuola Grande Santa Maria Santa Marina di San Rocco Gloriosa dei Frari v v San Lio Hotel AL CAN Restaurant A N D 15 FINISH G R San Salvatore Titian site v v Vaporetto stop Palazzo 1 Piazza San Marco Grassi START Antica Trattoria La Furatola S A N M A R C O Basilica v Doges’ Museo Correr 5 Loggetta Palace 9 San Sebastiano 6 0 YARDS 200 2 DORSODURO 3 Libreria v Sansoviniana v Ristorante 8 v 4 Zecca Riviera Accademia Santa Maria Hotel della Salute GIUDECCA Galleria 7 Ca’ Pisani N Agli Alboretti v Hotel Guggenheim v Belle Arti GUIDECCA CANAL CANAL La Calcina Locanda Ca’ del Brocchi Hotel alla Mistrà Salute da Cici (GIUDECCA) VENICE & THE NORTH PAGE 6 Venice’s first In the Salute church, monastery, Titian’s image of the the Church of city’s patron, St. Mark the heartstrings of patrons, who included artistic output. In other towns you will the Gesuiti has Enthroned with Saints. kings and duchesses, bishops and popes. Wnd the great portraits, the mythological the Martyrdom of St. Lawrence. His seductive brush and opulent palette paintings, the lyrical nudes, the political could turn even a tortured runt like Phil- allegories. However, an understanding of ip II into a brooding prince of stature. Titian’s art—and the way it was intended A beloved anecdote has Philip’s father, to be seen in his time, in its original set- Charles V, bending down to retrieve a ting—is oVered only in Venice. brush that had fallen from the hand of his revered painter. Because Titian lived so much longer Trail of Glory than Giorgione, his style changed more OME TO THE PIAZZA over the decades. In the church of Santa San Marco [1] in the very Maria della Salute, the altarpiece St. Mark early morning (or very late Enthroned with Saints shows the poetic at night), before the moving young master still under the inXuence of masses of backpackers mow the precocious Giorgione and the leg- Cyou down and the café orchestras start endary Raphael. playing “Memory.” In the gallery of Napoleon ripped large pictures in the The Assumption brought down a church at the Accademia is his last Venetian painting to far end because he painting, the Pietà. a new plane. Nothing like needed a ballroom, but otherwise the pi- Is it Wnished? Titian’s it had ever been attempted brushwork became azza hasn’t changed increasingly loose before—the movement dramatically since and suggestive with and light, the simple, the late sixteenth age, so perhaps it is. open wonder century, when Titian last set eyes on the It is hard to imag- of the barefoot Virgin ine how it could be basilica, the Doges’ Designed by Palace, the campani- and named for more expressive. It Titian’s friend, is the work of a man who knew he would le, and the stately library built by his friend the Libreria opened in 1560. meet his Maker shortly and was Wlled with the architect Sansovino. The basilica took feelings of terror and awe. When I recent- shape in the ninth century along with the ly stood in front of this amazing painting, bell tower.

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