Collection

Master T.° Ve. (active 1520s-1560s), Illuminated frontispiece of the commissione of Doge Francesco Donato to Vincenzo Gritti as Lieutenant of Udine, 1546. Paint and gold paint on vellum, height 24 cm x width 17 cm.
Left
  • Master T.° Ve. (active 1520s-1560s), Illuminated frontispiece of the commissione of Doge Francesco Donato to Vincenzo Gritti as Lieutenant of Udine, 1546. Paint and gold paint on vellum, height 24 cm x width 17 cm.
  • Leonardo Bellini (active about 1443-1490, Illuminated miniature from the commissione of Doge Cristoforo Moro to Domenico Diedo as Procurator of St. Mark, 1464. Paint, gold paint, and gold leaf on vellum, height 28.5 cm x width 20.5 cm.
  • Italian (Venice), Illuminated frontispiece of the commissione of Doge Giovanni Bembo to Francesco Contarini as Procurator de citra, 1615. Paint and gold paint on vellum; height 29 x width 21 cm.
  • Mendoza Binder (active 1518-1555), Upper cover of the commissione of Doge Francesco Donato to Girolamo Morosini as Captain of Brescia, 1547. Leather tooled in blind and gold, height 23.5 cm x width 16.5 cm.
  • Italian (Venice), Upper cover of the commissione of a member of the Fradello family (?), around 1580-2. Stamped leather with silver leaf and gold-toned varnish, height 22.5 cm x width 16.5 cm x depth 1 cm (closed).
  • Italian (Venice), Upper cover of the commissione of an unknown Venetian nobleman, mid-seventeenth century. Gold-tooled leather, height 22.5 cm x width 16.5 cm.
  • Italian (Venice), Upper cover of the <em>commissione</em> of Doge Giovanni II Cornaro to Giovanni Bollani as Podestà of Chioggia, 1718. Repoussé and chased, height 22 cm x width 18 cm x depth 3.5 cm (closed).
Right
 

Illuminating the Serenissima:
Books of the Republic of Venice

May 3-June 19, 2011

La Serenissima, or the Most Serene Republic of Venice, existed for over a millennium from the late seventh century to 1797. At the height of its power in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries it was the center of an empire extending from mainland Italy to the eastern Mediterranean. The head of state was a Doge who was elected for life by the nobility.

Books, called commissioni, are presentation copies of contracts of Venetian noblemen elected to oversee the Serenissima's provinces for usually sixteen months, or to be lifelong administrators of the city of Venice. From the mid-1400s until the fall of the Republic, office-holders had their commissioni elaborately written, illuminated and bound by hand. Commemorating service to the state, personal achievement, and taste, these manuscripts were objects of privilege, power, and beauty.

Isabella Stewart Gardner's commissioni not only reflect her passion for Venice—as seen in her Venetian-style palace and its art from the Serenissima—but also her love of books. She started to collect rare volumes in the mid-1880s before she began to buy art, encouraged by Charles Eliot Norton, Harvard's first professor of art history and an expert book collector. Mrs. Gardner acquired three of the commissioni displayed along with fourteen other Venetian manuscripts from Norton. He sold them to Gardner because he believed that she alone would appreciate the books' artistic and historical value as a collection.

The commissioni are displayed in the Long Gallery where Mrs. Gardner kept them and her other most prized books. Her collection enables us to admire the evolution over three centuries of Venetian book-decoration, illuminating the past glory of the Serenissima.

The following commissioni are displayed in the exhibition:

Illumination

Binding


This exhibition was made possible by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and curated by Anne-Marie Eze, Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Curatorial Fellow at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. She would like to thank for their scholarly assistance: Lilian Armstrong, Matteo Casini, Carlo Corsato, Frederick Ilchman, Hope Mayo, Laura Nuvoloni, Dorit Raines, and Helena Szépe.