Venetian Final Paper

!1 The Power of the Portrait: Titian’s Construction of Patrician Venetians During the Renaissance, the people of Venice were consumed, much like our society of today, by the need for social representation and prominence. It seems that for humans, it is never enough to have wealth and success, we must also display our accomplishments for peer recognition, approval, and envy. Such was the case with Venetian nobility of the sixteenth-century; they utilized portraiture to construct and emphasize an image of the ideal elite lifestyle. This paper will explore the fabrication of patrician Venetians’ identity and social standing by taking a comparative look at the formal aspects and histories of four Titian portraits: The Vendramin Family Venerating a Relic of the True Cross completed between 1550 and 1560 (Fig. 1), Ranuccio Farnese of 1542 (Fig. 2), Man with a Glove of the early 1520’s (Fig. 3), and Clarissa Strozzi of 1542 (Fig. 4). The subjects and their attire, inclusion of important historical symbols, and contextualization of the portraits all work to construct and maintain the power of the patrician Venetians’ image. Before assessing images of patrician Venetians, though, it is important for one to understand the history and conditions of being a part of such an elite group. The Venetian nobility were known for their exclusivity and functioned around the idea that the strength of the family was more important than the power of the individual.1 As such a prominent aspect of Venetian history, it is interesting to note that prior to the 13th century there was not a distinct and sustaining “nobility.” Noble status was based loosely on who temporarily held a position in the government and who had the most money, but it wasn’t until the creation of the Maggior 1 James C. Davis, The Decline of the Venetian Nobility as a Ruling Class (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1962), 15, 25. !2 Consiglio, the Great Council, that a true Venetian noble class emerged.2 The Great Council was a segment of Venetian government that, over time, became increasingly exclusive to the patrician families through a network of laws passed by existing members that made it next to impossible to gain access without social noble standing.3 By virtue of these laws, the noblemen members had the power to elect their equally elite friends and relatives, further cutting off outside access to an already competitive institution.4 Members of the Great Council filled the important government offices, thus making a certain level of wealth and political influence synonymous5 and by the early fourteenth-century, the patriciate families had a monopoly on political authority.6 By the sixteenth-century, Venetian nobles either worked in government public service or specialized in trade.7 The importance of family success over individual profit still prevailed, and was expressed through the fraterna or family partnership in business matters. Patrician boys were born into familial responsibility, and would start learning the affairs of the family at the age of 15.8 For government affiliated families, young men would come into political adulthood at the age of 20 to 259 and as author Donald Queller notes, The nobles, who’s birth gave them the right to govern the state, in turn offered to it the most admirable devotion. From infancy, the young noble was raised to believe that he owed his entire being to 2 Ibid., 16, 28. 3 David Chambers and Brian Pullan, Venice: A Documentary History, 1450 - 1630 (Massachusetts: Blackwell Publications, 1992), 261. 4 Donald E. Queller, The Venetian Patriciate (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1986), 87. 5 Davis, 18. 6 Queller, 29. 7 Davis, 28. 8 Ibid., 26. 9 Chambers and Pullan, 242. !3 the Republic. All his life he willingly subordinated his own interests to the state. He could not refuse public office. He moved from one duty to another… always working for the good of the city.10 Though noble women were not involved in governmental affairs, they were not free of expectation. For the young women, strict laws were made concerning marriage and childbirth that forbade anyone of non-noble standing from marrying into an elite family. All noble marriages and births were recorded in the Libro d’Oro, the Golden Book, to show that a family’s blood was pure.11 When looking at historical social patterns, it is important to understand the nature of laws which is that they are always made in response to the cultural shifts of the time period. In the case of patrician Venetians, their socially constricting laws and practices are evidence of the cultural importance of constructing a strong elite identity to maintain a certain level of visible and traceable power. And what better a way to represent a lasting noble status than a physical image, the portrait? The Renaissance ushered in a search for and appreciation of, “beauty, aesthetic, and moral expression,”12 making portrait painting a revered art and one of the most lucrative areas of Venetian state patronage. To construct their portraits, the Venetian government had strong influence on the artists and their guilds. Like the noble families, the government was opposed to the idea of individual fame, however, they were still able to use portraiture to take political advantage of the arts to achieve a sense of unity. To portray this unification, individual portraits were painted of the government officials wearing the same attire as one another. The result was many visually linked images that together put up a united and powerful front.13 Each Doge was 10 Queller, 14. 11 Davis, 15, 19. 12 Satya Datta, Women and Men in Early Modern Venice: Reassessing History (Burlington, Vermont: Ashgate Publishing, 2003), 89. 13 Chambers and Pullan, 388. !4 also required to have their portrait painted on the frieze of the Hall of the Great Council, many of which were painted by one of the most universally revered and influential painters, Titian.14 In the beginning of Titian’s career as a painter, he wrote to the Venetian government that “…mastering painting was ‘not so much out of desire for profit as to seek the acquisition of some small fame.’”15 This quote is a revealing insight into the mind of Titian and shows that while he most often painted for patriciate families and the government, his motivation was not their hefty payments but more-so the possibility of recognition via their social connections. Titian would go on to paint the most distinguished families of the time, among them were the Vendramin family and the Farnese family. 16 The well-known families boasted their established lineages and legacies through the arts by imaging certain events and including symbols that refer to those events in other paintings.17 Gentile Bellini’s painting, Miracle of the True Cross on the Bridge of San Lorenzo (1500) (Fig. 5) shows a fourteenth-century member of the Vendramin Fig. 5 —Titian, Miracle of the True Cross on the Bridge of San Lorenzo, 1500 14 Ibid., 392. 15 Datta, 100. 16 Luba Freedman, Titian’s Portraits through Aretino’s Lens (Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995), 153. 17 Blake de Maria, Becoming Venetian (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), 28. !5 family, Andrea I, saving the relic of the True Cross. Andrea Vendramin was the head of the Scuola Grande di San Giovanni Evangelista which received a piece of the True Cross as a donation in 1368. During the customary ritual procession through the city displaying the new relic, the mass of excited people caused the relic to be knocked towards the water. It is said that Andrea I saved it before it was submerged which can be seen portrayed at the bottom of Bellini’s painting.18 This event is the Vendramin family’s legacy in Venice, and the painted documentation of the event ensures that the story will continue to be remembered and referenced for decades to come. One such reference to the event at the Bridge of San Lorenzo can be seen in Titian’s, The Vendramin Family Venerating a Relic of the True Cross (Fig. 1). The family portrait shows all nine male members of the Vendamin family, young and old, gathered around the relic of the True Cross that Andrea I had saved from the water. This painting is an example of the power and complexity a patrician portrait can have. At first glance, a portrait can appear to just be a simple reconstruction of what a person looks like. The wonder of a portrait is often reduced to how well Fig. 1—Titian, The Vendramin Family Venerating a Relic of the True Cross, 1550-1560 18 Ibid., 29. !6 the sitter was captured, and the sheer magic of a painter turning paint into a person. On the contrary, though, portraits are much more complex. Certainly the paint as substance and ability to produce a likeness of the sitter is necessary and impressive, but there is much more to a portrait than that; within a portrait the expectations of both the artist and the subject must be met and by extension, the cultural influences and conventions of the time are conveyed.19 The patron’s wishes for their portrait are a reflection of the important personal and political tastes of the time period and reveal much more than just a painter’s aptitude. The Vendramins imaged in Titian’s family portrait were heirs to the fortune their ancestor Andrea I had made from manufacturing soap and oils.20 So not only did Andrea Vendramin I provide his family with a symbolic legacy by saving the True Cross, but he positioned them well financially which is what allowed them to become such powerful noble figures.

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