4 Politics, Portraits, and Love
The social lives of paintings in Sixteenth-Century Venice Kessel, E.J.M. van Citation Kessel, E. J. M. van. (2011, December 1). The social lives of paintings in Sixteenth-Century Venice. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/1887/18182 Version: Not Applicable (or Unknown) Licence agreement concerning inclusion of doctoral License: thesis in the Institutional Repository of the University of Leiden Downloaded from: https://hdl.handle.net/1887/18182 Note: To cite this publication please use the final published version (if applicable). 4 Politics, Portraits, and Love Francesco Bembo, Bianca Capello, and ‘the most beautiful contemporary painting in Venice’ In this fourth and last chapter, we return to the portrait of Bianca Capello. As we have seen in the Introduction, the portrait of Capello (1548-1587), the Venetian-born grand duchess of Tuscany, was owned by a Venetian patrician, a certain Francesco Bembo (1544-1599), who, in the summer of 1586, brought it to the Doge’s Palace. There, the portrait attended a dinner with the Doge and his guests; it had a private meeting with the Doge and his most trusted friends; and it spent the night in the Doge’s apartments. This chapter shows that, in fact, the portrait’s visit to the Palace was the climax of a process which had been going on for months, in which the painting attracted the attention of hundreds of people. It all started on a day in March 1586, when a package was delivered at Francesco Bembo’s house. As Bembo confided in a letter to the grand duch- ess, composed on that same day, … after almost half an hour, I unwrapped the portrait, so strongly desired by many, and particularly by me; and I was so pleased by it, that for two whole hours I did nothing but admire it, and contemplate it much to my satisfaction, for in fact, it is very beautiful in every part, and made with particular diligence by the extremely skilful Gaetano.
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