Propaganda, Prosperity, and the Sea: Distortion in Jacopo de'Barbari's View of Venice

Written by Catriona Reid 

Edited by Miray Eroglu

In order to produce popular representations of their revered republic, printmakers of early modern Venice did not prioritize accuracy. Instead, artists like Jacopo de’Barbari combined naturalistic detail with elements of fantasy to disseminate idealistic messages of prosperity, power, and a cohesive civic identity. For Venetians, foreign travellers, and merchants, messages such as these were employed in order to perpetuate what was known as the myth of Venice. Deliberate distortions in Jacopo de’Barbari’s View of Venice exemplify the early modern exercise of propagandic self-imaging. De’Barbari’s depiction counters the actual decline of the Venetian republic, and pushes the myth of Venice forward through his clever methods of artistic deception.

The contemporary myth was the conception that Venice was born miraculously from the sea, springing to a position of insurmountable power by way of divine will. In the early seventeenth century, the Spanish Ambassador Don Alonso della Cueva describes Venice as if speaking for all of Europe: “In the unanimous opinion of all men, the Venetian Republic is deemed to be the first and greatest in dignity, power and authority in Italy today” [1]. Manifested in the city’s cosmopolitan population, impressive Arsenale, and exquisite architecture, the myth was widely promoted and believed by Venetians as well as foreigners throughout Europe and merchants from the Ottoman Empire with whom Venice traded. Allusion to the myth can also be found in mid-sixteenth-century English literature, which attests to the breadth of Venetian self-imaging across Europe [2].

Jacopo de’Barbari’s View of Venice (fig. 1) further emulates the image of Venetian supremacy the people of Venice sought to instill in the minds of others. Monumental in size, the map, printed from six woodblocks, spans over nine feet long by four feet wide. From the vantage point of an imagined God’s-eye view, de’Barbari conceives Venice as a paragon of divine order, an emporium blessed by God [3]. The viewer is drawn inwards from the right-hand side of the work, as if approaching Venice from the perspective of a merchant or visitor, arriving at last in the safe enclosure of the city. By rendering topographic details at a lowered, oblique angle, de’Barbari allows the Alps to rise above the city while the viewer’s eye travels deeper into the pictureplane [4]. As it would have been impossible to view land from above, de’Barbari depended on the employment of surveyors who were placed atop multiple campanili around the city in order to gather the topographical information required to produce this intricate work from its artificial viewpoint, roughly 500 feet in the air [5].

Fig. 1 Jacopo de’Barbari, View of Venice, 1500, woodcut, 4’5” x 9’3” (1.4 x 2.8 m). Museo Civico Correr, Venice.

The precise detailing of the buildings and ships, evident when observing de’Barbari’s cityscape up close, adheres to the particular Venetian aesthetic, venezianità, known for having a “penchant for circumstantial detail” [6]. This artistic style corresponds to humanist notions which privileged a visual harmony of both naturalistic and idealistic qualities [7]. Bronwen Wilson claims “the city could be interpreted as a powerful state...and as an independent...isolated island, a utopia rendered with staggering presence by de’Barbari’s dazzling realism” [8]. Rather than the “remarkable fusion of ideas” which makes de’Barbari’s woodcut so noteworthy, it is his departure from fact toward myth that creates a shift from realistic to propagandistic [9].

For visitors and locals, Venice was a “secure refuge” whose “singular geography provided the foundation for a myth that fused peace and liberty” [10]. The city self-promoted as the Serenissima: the “most serene of republics” [11]. Venice was a prosperous and vital city, situated strategically for “entrepot” exchange between the eastern and western worlds [12]. Earlier conceptions of the city exemplify the myth of Venice recognized both near and far. One such example is Marco Polo’s departure from Venice from the Travels of Marco Polo (fig. 4), which depicts the wealth of Venice on display, exemplified by the ornate, ivory-coloured buildings and religious monuments, and its calmness, indicated by the presence of swans floating in the canals [13]. In his travel journal dated 1493, the historian and diarist Marin Sanudo writes: “This city, amidst the billowing waves of the sea, stands on the crest of the main, almost like a queen restraining its force….It is so very safe at present, that no one can attack or frighten it” [14]. Writing of the city as if it were alive, Sanudo illustrates Venice as a wondrous, odd-defying being, ascending from the sea. 

Fig. 4 Marco Polo’s departure from Venice, from the Travels of Marco Polo, c. 1400. Illumination on parchment, 6¼ x 7½” (16 x 19 cm). Bodleian Library, Oxford.

Furthermore, Venice’s social and political structure was seen as an ideal example of civic harmony, inspiring city constitutions for centuries to come [15]. The republic had an “ideally formed state,” unrivalled in its remarkable incorporation of three superior types of government: a monarchy and an oligarchy, comprised of a democratic base [16]. Venetian senators spoke of themselves as “we who have built such a great city in the middle of salt marshes” [17]. The very existence of the Serenissima exemplified the strength and unity of its people.

Though largely unnoticed until the mid 1500s, the republic’s dominance began to wane at the start of the sixteenth century. Beginning in 1509, Venice’s primacy was destabilized as it began to lose battles in Italy and the Mediterranean, and by 1529, the “hope of Venetian primacy...was gone [18]. Two bouts of the plague, in 1575 and 1630, resulted in major population decline. Sea trade routes formed later on excluded Venice, initiating its economic deterioration [19]. By 1571, Venice had suffered the major loss of Cyprus, marking one of the first signs of Venetian decline [20]. The republic would go on to lose Candia in 1669 before collapsing in the late eighteenth century [21]. In the wake of economic and population decline following both plagues, as well traumatic losses in territory absorbed into the Ottoman Empire, the reproduction of de’Barbari’s view, executed in such an exact way, shows the continued and even increased need for propagandic images as Venice began to fall.  Nonetheless, the rhetoric of Venetian power prevailed until the republic succumbed to Napoleonic rule in 1797 [22].

Prior to de’Barbari’s map, cartographers fashioned the city of Venice according to various iconographic conventions. By common legend and in honour of Christian tradition, Venice was founded in the year 421 on Annunciation day: March 25th [23]. As the Annunciation marks the day the archangel Gabriel proclaimed the conception of Jesus within the womb of the Virgin Mary, her image, along with popular symbolic lore is tied to the birth of the republic itself [24]. Furthermore, the early-established reliance on St. Mark the Evangelist as the city’s “protector saint,” is visualized abundantly throughout the city in the form of a winged lion (fig. 5). Despite the lion’s effective symbolization of strength, de’Barbari discards this convention, seeking a new image of Venice altogether. Venice was also associated with Venus, as both were perceived by others as “quasi-supernatural image[s] of beauty, born out of the waves” [25]. The orthographic likeness of their names further ingrained the analogy in the minds of others [26]. Favouring instead the incorporation of Neptune and Mercury, de’Barbari’s map carries the myth of Venice “from east to west, from Byzantium to Rome” and thus, redefines the republic in his own terms: as mighty rather than evangelical [27].

Fig. 5 Lion of St. Mark, 13th Century, Museo Correr, Venice.

In addition to naturalistic detail, de’Barbari includes mythical elements and characters in his map, complicating the possibility of perceiving this work as a feat of fact-based precision. Fictitious characters reiterate the fabrication of the myth of Venice, which include eight wind gods who orbit the city, beckoning ships inward to the safety of the city provided by the surrounding Lido. De’Barbari’s incorporation of Mercury and Neptune further emphasize the republic’s image as a prosperous city, protected by the Greek gods of trade and the sea. Perched atop his regal dolphin, Neptune declares “I, Neptune, reside here, watching over the seas at this port” (fig. 2) [28]. Above him, Mercury is illustrated as a promise of protection over the city’s trade (fig. 3) [29]. As guardian centerpieces, both deities symbolize the maritime and mercantile advantage of Venice. Though their envisaged fortitude reflects the mythological perception of Venice, de’Barbari’s incorporation of Grecian deities is unusual. Moving away from conventional methods of personifying the republic using female or Catholic figures, de’Barbari chooses commanding, male emblems to evoke Venice’s power, demonstrating his intention to portray dominance, rather than the religious unity and serenity Venice was also known for. 

Fig. 2 Jacopo de’Barbari, View of Venice, 1500. Detail: Neptune.

Fig. 3 Jacopo de’Barbari, View of Venice, 1500. Detail: Mercury.

Venice was often depicted and referred to as a cosmopolitan theatre which, for Wilson, was “an early modern topos” that “resonated with widespread perceptions of the city as a stage teeming with foreigners” [30]. Wilson writes: “the spokesperson for the values of Venezianita(being Venetian/Venetian-ness), defends the crowd who participates in civic life: ‘Man is placed in this world as in a theatre in which God sits as spectator of his actions’” [31]. De’Barbari’s view condenses the contemporary setting of the Venetian republic into a miniscule rendering which “did not just disseminate a factual account of Venice, but also promoted the ‘ideal’ notion of Venice as the theatre of the world, the perfect union of place and institutions” [32]. However, aside from the presence of Greek deities, de’Barbari’s map lacks human figures. In this manner, it is “an empty stage,” as Deborah Howard notes, “populated only by gods and ships” [33]. Instead of showing Venice as a richly populated city, de’Barbari empties it, highlighting only its physical attributes to show the city’s opulence.

In addition to altering traditional symbols of Venice, de'Barbari's choice to shift perspective also demonstrates his desire to show off the famed myth of Venice. By placing a grid over a modern-day map of Venice, Juergen Schulz claims de’Barbari’s view is more or less accurate on the right half, but significantly distorted on the left [34]. If the map had been  produced with correct perspective, all the vertical lines would converge at the same vanishing point above the landmass. However, it appears de’Barbari began with the eastern portion of the map, which includes important establishments of Venice’s visual identity, and ran out of space as he moved west. For example, the Arsenale, a site of immense naval manufacture and harbour for the republic’s fleet, and the Piazza di San Marco, are central, emphasized in comparison to other regions of the city. This hypothesis seems improbable, as the map took de’Barbari three years to complete, and significant planning would have prohibited this mistake [35]. Therefore, it is likely this distortion was intentional, proving de’Barbari sought to emphasize the Arsenale and the Piazza in order to assert a propagandistic image of Venetian strength and maritime power. By shrinking the western section of the city, de’Barbari appears to have prioritized the accurate yet  enlarged rendering of the Arsenale. Constructed in 1104, the Arsenale influenced the overall shape of Venice’s urban landscape [36]. The Arsenale was originally intended for the storage of ships and arms, but its “extent was more than doubled between 1303 and 1325” [37]. As the origin of the Venetian fleet, which was instrumental in procuring the city’s wealth, the Arsenale was a source of “public power,” a focal point of the city’s self-imaging [38]. Another significant distortion is de’Barbari’s “reconfiguration” and shifted focus onto the campanile at the Piazza di San Marco (fig. 7) [39]. In actuality, most of the city's bell towers are much taller than they ought to be [40]. The “enlarged and embellished” openness of the Piazza was “exceptional for a Western city” at end of the twelfth century [41]. Regularly occupied by local craftsmen and officials operating out of booths, the Piazza became a site of public celebration and gathering on marked occasions [42].

Fig. 7 Jacopo de’Barbari, View of Venice, 1500. Detail: Piazza di San Marco.

Joseph Heintz the Younger’s Bird’s Eye View of Venice (fig. 6) can be considered comparatively to de’Barbari’s map, as Heintz enlarges the ships surrounding the city in a similar manner.  Based directly on de’Barbari’s view, Heintz’s painting reproduces de’Barbari’s propagandist distortions precisely, and furthers pre-existing elements of idealization through his vibrant use of colour. In earlier pilgrim chronicle illustrations, Reuwich (fig. 8) and Wolgemut (fig. 9) focus instead on the Palazzo Ducale, implying a different delineation of the city’s image [43]. This noteworthy shift reveals de’Barbari’s intentional decision to refashion Venice’s identity from above; what Howard calls the “start of the 16th century's sustained programme to ennoble the city centre” [44]. Executed by employing yet another alternate vanishing point for the rendering the of the Piazza, this distortion is incongruous with the rest of the map. According to Howard, this is evident in a “disjunction...in the lines on the paving” [45]. Moreover, the alteration causes an omission of southern and eastern parts of the city [46]. De’Barbari’s exclusion of lesser areas is a form of what J.B. Harley terms visual “silencing,” a tactic used to render communities virtually invisible to foreigners [47]. Though seemingly nominal, de’Barbari deceives his viewer, promoting an image of Venice in which the Piazza is newly prominent. Using intentional alterations, de’Barbari abandons perspectival and topographical accuracy in favour of propagating political and social sentiments.

Fig 6 Joseph Heintz the Younger, Bird’s Eye View of Venice. Oil on canvas, mid-17th c. Museo Correr, Venice.

Howard notes the rendering of the Grand Canal is also incorrect according to perspectival laws [48]. The canal would not have been as visible from the angle of the imagined view. Howard claims that “only from vantage points close to the Grand Canal itself, or from a notionally higher viewpoint than that achievable from any tower, would the Grand Canal appear in the way that Barbari depicts it” [49]. The canal appears to have been tilted, rendered in order to appear flatter, as if we are observing it from directly above or nearby. Used for ceremonial processions and travelling throughout the city by boat, emphasis of the Grand Canal illustrates changing approaches to the physical movement of people within Venice. Like the Arsenale and the Piazza, the Grand Canal was a site of Venetian pride to which de’Barbari has given additional attention, advertising and amplifying Venice’s perceived excellence.

Taking advantage of Venice’s recent ascent  to becoming the printing capital of Europe, the German merchant, Anton Kolb, sought a four-year copyright privilege of his commissioned de’Barbarian view. Through the sale of the print, Kolb endeavoured to implant an image of the prosperity and power of Venice within the minds of both local and foreign dignitaries. Verified by records of “requests for duty-free export,” de’Barbari’s map was intended for an international clientele: its sheer size reserved the work for diplomats, courtiers, collectors, and wealthy merchants who sought a sense of ownership over distant lands [50]. It is possible de’Barbari was trying to attract the attention of the ruler of the Holy Roman Empire, Emperor Maximilian I  (whom he went to work for after the map was produced) through his ability to evoke the power of a city. A more cosmopolitan sense of the world existed at the time; maps and city views circulated just as diplomats and courtiers travelled. As citizens of the world, individuals’ impressions of great cities were derived from propagandic self-imaging.

As Elisabeth Crouzet-Pavan writes, “it was impossible to dissociate reality from an eminently flattering and distorted image….At least until the nineteenth century the myth strongly influenced the writing of history because the principal goal of that history was to support the myth” [51]. If de’Barbari’s map is understood as an object intended to perpetuate Venetian history, its primary purpose would have simply been to reiterate the myth of Venice. Therefore, de’Barbari rendered intentional distortions and symbolic personifications in order to portray Venice as the dominant and prosperous republic it was thought to be. 

As Venice’s superiority on the global stage ebbed, artists like de’Barbari and Heintz continued, through various illusionary means, to shout the myth of Venice even louder than before. Distortions in de’Barbari’s map, and those inspired by it, were means by which artists emulated the myth of Venice using visual symbols and creative exaggerations. Maps such as de’Barbari’s View of Venice ought not be interpreted as the topographically factual objects viewers are familiar with today. Rather than errors or oversights, perspectival distortions and symbolism must instead be understood as intentional artistic decisions guided by  the artist’s propagandist agenda.

endnotes

Brown, Patricia Fortini. Art and Life in Renaissance Venice. Perspectives. New York: Prentice Hall, 1997. Crouzet-Pavan, Elisabeth. Venice Triumphant: The Horizons of a Myth. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002.

Chambers, David, Jennifer Fletcher, Brian Pullan, and Renaissance Society of America, eds., Venice: A Documentary History, 1450-1630. Toronto: University of Toronto Press in Association with the Renaissance Society of America, 2001.

Della Cueva, Don Alonso. “The Dominions of the Venetian Republic: A Report by the Spanish Ambassador, c. 1618.” In Venice: A Documentary History, 1450-1630, edited by David Chambers, Jennifer Fletcher, Brian Pullan, and Renaissance Society of America, 31-35. Toronto: University of Toronto Press in Association with the Renaissance Society of America, 2001.

Frangenberg, Thomas. "Chorographies of Florence the Use of City Views and City Plans in the Sixteenth Century." Imago Mundi 46, no. 1 (1994): 41-64. doi:10.1080/03085699408592788.

Harley, J. B, and Paul Laxton. The New Nature of Maps: Essays in the History of Cartography. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001. Howard, Deborah. "Venice as a Dolphin: Further Investigations into Jacopo De'Barbari's View." Artibus Et Historiae 18, no. 35 (1997): 101-11. doi:10.2307/1483541.

Lane, Frederic Chapin. Venice, A Maritime Republic. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973.

Psarra, Sophia. "City-craft: Assembling the City." In Venice Variations: Tracing the Architectural Imagination, 27-81. London: UCL Press, 2018. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvqhspn.6.

Rosand, David. Myths of Venice: The Figuration of a State. Bettie Allison Rand Lectures in Art History. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001.

Sanudo, Marin. “Praise of the City of Venice, 1493.” In Venice: A Documentary History, edited by David Chambers, Brian Pullan, and Jennifer Fletcher, 4-21. Toronto: University of Toronto Press in Association with the Renaissance Society of America, 2001.

Schulz, Juergen. "Jacopo de' Barbari's View of Venice: Map Making, City Views, and Moralized Geography before the Year 1500." The Art Bulletin 60, no. 3 (1978): 425-74. doi:10.2307/3049817.

Wilson, Bronwen. The World in Venice: Print, the City, and Early Modern Identity. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/mcgill/detail.action?docID=3255054.

End Notes [1] Don Alonso della Cueva, “The Dominions of the Venetian Republic: A Report by the Spanish Ambassador, c. 1618,” in Venice: A Documentary History, 1450-1630, eds. David Chambers, Jennifer Fletcher, Brian Pullan, and Renaissance Society of America, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press in Association with the Renaissance Society of America, 2001), 31. [2] David Rosand, Myths of Venice: The Figuration of a State, Bettie Allison Rand Lectures in Art History (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 10. [3] Bronwen Wilson, The World in Venice: Print, the City, and Early Modern Identity (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014), 42. [4] Wilson, The World in Venice, 23; Thomas Frangenberg, "Chorographies of Florence the Use of City Views and City Plans in the Sixteenth Century," Imago Mundi 46, no. 1 (1994): 41. doi:10.1080/03085699408592788. [5] Deborah Howard, "Venice as a Dolphin: Further Investigations into Jacopo de'Barbari's View," Artibus Et Historiae 18, no. 35 (1997): 103. doi:10.2307/1483541; Sophia Psarra, "City-craft: Assembling the City," Venice Variations: Tracing the Architectural Imagination, (2018): 97. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvqhspn.6. [6] Patricia Fortini Brown, Art and Life in Renaissance Venice, (New York: Prentice Hall, 1997), 15. [7] Fortini Brown, Art and Life in Renaissance Venice, 9. [8] Wilson, The World in Venice, 47. [9] Wilson, The World in Venice, 47. [10] Wilson, The World in Venice, 44. [11] Wilson, The World in Venice, 44. [12] David Chambers, Jennifer Fletcher, Brian Pullan, and Renaissance Society of America, Venice: A Documentary History, 1450-1630, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press in Association with the Renaissance Society of America, 2001), 166. [13] Fortini Brown, Art and Life in Renaissance Venice, 10. [14] Marin Sanudo, “Praise of the City of Venice, 1493,” in Venice: A Documentary History, eds. Chambers, Fletcher, Pullan, and Renaissance Society of America, 4. [15] Rosand, Myths of Venice, 3-4. [16] Rosand, Myths of Venice, 3. [17] Elisabeth Crouzet-Pavan, Venice Triumphant: The Horizons of a Myth (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002),1. [18] Crouzet-Pavan, Venice Triumphant, xix-xx; Frederic Chapin Lane, Venice, A Maritime Republic, (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973), 245. [19] Lane, Venice, A Maritime Republic, 19. [20] Crouzet-Pavan, Venice Triumphant, xxi. [21] Crouzet-Pavan, Venice Triumphant, xxi. [22] Crouzet-Pavan, Venice Triumphant, xxi. [23] Rosand, Myths of Venice, 12. [24] Rosand, Myths of Venice, 12. [25] Howard, "Venice as a Dolphin," 106. [26] Howard, "Venice as a Dolphin," 106. [27] Wilson, The World in Venice, 28. [28] Howard, "Venice as a Dolphin," 107. [29] Howard, "Venice as a Dolphin," 107. [30] Wilson, The World in Venice, 4. [31] Wilson, The World in Venice, 5. [32] Psarra, "City-craft: Assembling the City," 85. [33] Howard, "Venice as a Dolphin,” 108. [34] Jurgen Schulz, "Jacopo De' Barbari's View of Venice: Map Making, City Views, and Moralized Geography before the Year 1500," The Art Bulletin 60, no. 3 (1978): 438. doi:10.2307/3049817. [35] Psarra, "City-craft: Assembling the City," 97. [36] Crouzet-Pavan, Venice Triumphant, 23; Lane, Venice, A Maritime Republic, 14. [37] Lane, Venice, A Maritime Republic, 14. [38] Crouzet-Pavan, Venice Triumphant, 23. [39] Wilson, The World in Venice, 12. [40] Schulz, "Jacopo De' Barbari's View of Venice," 439. [41] Crouzet-Pavan, Venice Triumphant, 23. [42] Lane, Venice, A Maritime Republic, 13. [43] Howard, "Venice as a Dolphin," 104. [44] Howard, "Venice as a Dolphin," 104. [45] Howard, "Venice as a Dolphin," 104. [46] Wilson, The World in Venice, 12. [47] J. B. Harley and Paul Laxton, The New Nature of Maps: Essays in the History of Cartography (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), 14-15. [48] Howard, "Venice as a Dolphin," 105. [49] Howard, "Venice as a Dolphin," 106. [50] Howard, "Venice as a Dolphin," 102. [51] Crouzet-Pavan, Venice Triumphant, 188.