Il Gobbo di Rialto
The Gobbo di Rialto, or the Hunchback of Rialto , is a statue made of Istrian marble that is located opposite the Church of San Giacomo di Rialto in Venice . The statue, created in the 16th century by Pietro da Salò , depicts a crouched, naked hunchback supporting a small staircase.
According to the writings of Stefano Magno, it was inaugurated on November 16, 1541 and used as a platform for official proclamations. The laws of the Republic of Venice or the names of law breakers were read out by an officer standing on the platform while another officer was proclaiming the same from the Pietra Del Bando , a small pulpit in Piazza San Marco .
The gobbo was also used to punish minor offenders. The culprits were stripped naked and had to walk along the citizens' gloves that were laid out on the streets from Piazza San Marco to the Rialto Market. They saved themselves from further humiliation by kissing the statue.
In 1836 the statue was restored by the commune, the platform above the hunchback's head now bore a Latin inscription with the date of restoration. An iron grille was installed for protection.
It was said that the gobbo communicated with the pasquino , one of the speaking statues of Rome . From the early 16th century onwards, the pasquino, a torso , was used as a vehicle for critical comments against the Pope and the authorities: satirical comments were anonymously placed on the base of the statue; supposedly they came from the Pasquino. In the 17th century, the Pasquino had a correspondence with the Gobbo about the Republic of Venice, Pope Paul V and the writings of the cardinals Baronio and Bellarmino .
The characters of Launcelot Gobbo, Shylock's servant, and his father, old Gobbo in William Shakespeare's comedy The Merchant of Venice, may have been inspired by this traditional symbol of the Rialto.
literature
- Giovanni Silvestri (ed.), Nicola Francesco Haym: Biblioteca italiana ossia Notes, de'libri rari italiani , Milan 1803
- Emmanuele Antonio Cicogna : Saggio di bibliografia veneziana , Venice 1847
- Martin Garrett: Venice , Signal Books Oxford 2001, ISBN 1902669290
Individual evidence
- ^ Stefano Magno: Annali Veneti
- ^ Filippo de Vivo: Information and Communication in Venice: Rethinking Early Modern Politics. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2007, p. 137 books.google
Coordinates: 45 ° 26 '19.6 " N , 12 ° 20' 6.4" E