Palazzo Grimani a Santa Maria Formosa
Palazzo Grimani a Santa Maria Formosa is a palace in Venice in the Veneto region of Italy . It is located in the Sestiere Castello with a view of the Rio de San Severo and the Rio de Santa Maria Formosa near the church of Santa Maria Formosa . Today the palace houses a state museum.
history
The palace belonged to the Grimani family from the Santa Maria Formosa branch until 1865 and then passed through several hands until in 1981 the Soprintendenza per i Beni Architettonici e Ambientali of the city of Venice bought it in a state of severe disrepair and it came into state ownership. After a long restoration phase, a state museum opened there on December 20, 2008.
The building, the old core of which was built in the Middle Ages at the confluence of the Rio de San Severo and the Rio de Santa Maria Formosa , was bought by Antonio Grimani , who became Doge in 1521 , and bequeathed it to his nephew, Vettore Grimani , in the 1520s . Procuratore de supra of the Republic of Venice , and Giovanni Grimani , Patriarch of Aquileia , who had the old walls restored, inspired by the architectural models of the classical period. The two brothers wanted to give the building “modern” forms and had it decorated with rings of frescoes and stucco that were very effective. In 1558, with the death of Vettore, Giovanni became the sole owner of the property and arranged for it to be expanded with the help of many artists, including Federico Zuccari , who created the decorations on the monumental staircase, and Camillo Mantovano , who lent a hand in many places. The patriarch Giovanni Grimani built his collection of antiquities, which included sculptures, marble statues, vases, bronzes and precious stones, in the halls of the palace as a refined collector. In 1587 he decided to donate his collections of sculptures and precious stones to the Republic of Venice. After his death, the former were systematized in the hall of the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana and formed the core of the collection of the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Venezia .
description
The long restoration allowed visitors to see the rooms in their old splendor, including the Chamber of Callisto with stucco work by Giovanni da Udine , the Chamber of Apollo with frescoes by Francesco Salviati and Giovanni da Udine, the Dogens Hall , decorated with stucco work and colorful marble statues , the Room of Leaves by Camillo Mantovano, with a ceiling entirely painted with fruit trees, flowers and animals, and the Tribuna , which houses more than a hundred pieces from the archaeological collection. There is a sculptural group of figures with the "Rape of Ganymede ", which is hung in the middle of the vault decorated with lacunae. Federico Zuccari is most likely also responsible for the stucco decoration with the grotesque open-mouthed monster that can be seen in the fireplace room. Other works in the museum relate to the collecting interests of the Grimani family. In the Chamber of the Psyche you can admire the painting “Handing over the presents to Psyche”, an old copy of the original by Francesco Salviati, which was removed from the middle of the carved wooden ceiling in the middle of the 19th century.
The second main floor, which has no interior decorations like the first, houses temporary exhibitions and cultural events.
The palace is a unique and valuable element in the history of art and the history of Venetian architecture. The special architectural form, the decorations full of puzzles and different interpretations, as well as the family history of the Grimani a Santa Maria Formosa, are still passionate subjects of study and research today.
Museum route
From the Ruga Giuffa , a small alley ( Ramo Grimani ) leads through a marble portal into the wide inner courtyard of the palace, which was created by an impressive restructuring that ended in the 1660s. The originally medieval L-shaped building was rebuilt and expanded in several phases from the 1630s onwards, by the brothers Vettore and Giovanni Grimani , inspired by the ancient Roman domus style in the climate of the Renaissance . The loggias are adorned with classic statues as in the halls on the main floor. The loggia in front of the entrance to the museum was completely decorated with frescoes of plants and complemented by beautiful baskets in stucco, which you can also admire.
Monumental staircase
Between 1563 and 1565, the barrel vault of the staircase that leads to the portego (reception room) on the main floor was magnificently decorated with allegorical frescoes by Federico Zuccari, a young artist of Roman culture, reminding of the client's virtues, complemented by grotesques and stucco reliefs with mythological creatures. The latter are reproductions of some of the old cameos in the Giovanni Grimani collection . Overall, the grandeur of the grand staircase can at best be compared with the Scala d'Oro of the Doge's Palace and that of the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana.
Gold chamber
This hall owes its name to the paintings decorated with gold threads that used to cover the walls. Here you can admire three pieces from Giovanni Grimani's collection of antiquities that were donated to the Statuario Pubblico della Serenissima (now the National Archaeological Museum) in 1587 : two busts of Antinous and a head of Athena . The plaster statue of the Laocoon group is a very rare copy of the extremely well-known sculpture from the 1st century BC. BC Cardinal Domenico Grimani had received a bronze sculpture of this group from Jacopo Sansovino as a gift, as Giorgio Vasari relates. The original of the sculpture, found in Rome in 1506 near the Baths of Titus , is preserved in the Vatican Museums .
Room of the leaves
The ceiling of the room, called “the leaves” or “the pergola”, was designed by Camillo Mantovano in the 1660s. Its name is due to the spectacular decoration of the ceiling that celebrates nature, full of plants and flowers, a dense bush inhabited by numerous animals, often in an attacking position and rich in symbolic meanings. On the bezels above the grotesques, complex figures in the form of rebus may play on the long and difficult trial of the heresy suffered by Patriarch Giovanni Grimani .
Tribuna
The Tribuna is also called the Antiquarium or Chamber of Antiquities. Originally it housed more than 130 ancient sculptures, including the most valuable of the collection. This extraordinary room was previously closed on three sides, illuminated from above and inspired by the Pantheon ; it was the fulcrum and the ultimate center of the path along the halls before which it lay. The multitude of sources of inspiration suggests that Giovanni Grimani was directly involved in the planning. The sculpture with the rat by Ganymede , which is hung in the center of the room, is a Roman copy of a late Hellenistic model and was returned to its original position after the palace was restored.
From March 2019 to March 2021, numerous sculptures that appeared in the collection of Giovanni Grimani from the 16th century were reinstalled in the Tribuna for the exhibition “Domus Grimani” .
Classicist room
This room has been renovated to match the bedroom for the wedding celebrated in 1791 between the Roman princess Virginia Chigi and Giovanni Carlo Grimani . For this purpose, two comfortable changing rooms in the rooms behind the fireplace wall were redesigned. The ceiling decoration, which was carried out by the Veronese artist Giovanni Faccioli , faithfully reproduces some passages of the old wall painting of the Domus Aurea and the Aldobrandini wedding . Currently in this room is La Nuda , a work that is part of the cycle of frescoes that Giorgione executed in 1508 on the facade of the Fondaco dei Tedeschi .
Dining room
The striking ceiling of this room, which is decorated with festoons of game, vegetables and fish alternating with floral ribbons, was created by Camillo Mantovano and an employee around 1567. The composition scheme with the space divided into segments by rays converging in the middle shows, with modern means, a model that is used in ancient decorations. The 17th century painting in the center of the ceiling, Saint John Baptizing the Crowd, is derived from the painting of the same name by Nicolas Poussin , which is on display in the Louvre . According to 19th century guides, this was supposed to replace a painting attributed to Giorgione that showed the Four Elements .
Dogensaal, vestibule and chapel
These three rooms were only created in the final building phase of the palace and completed in 1568. In the chapel , which Patriarch Giovanni Grimani used for his private mass celebration, a 16th century altarpiece by Giovanni Contarini, a follower of Titian , was placed in place of the marble altar that was removed in the 19th century. On the ceiling of the chapel and vestibule , short Latin inscriptions also enrich the patriarch's trials. From the little window of the vestibule you can see the spiral staircase, probably a Palladian invention. In the adjoining room, a stone slab above the fireplace shows and strengthens the role of Antonio Grimani , the grandfather of Giovanni Grimani and Doge of the Republic of Venice from 1521 to 1523, to whom the room is dedicated. To emphasize the importance of these three halls, the walls and floors are completely decorated with marble slabs in an antique style. Many of them, struck in Roman times in Bithynia , in Greece or in the province of Africa , are very valuable. Antique vases, busts and classical groups of sculptures are placed in the niches above the door and above the fireplace. The production shows a bronze bust of Antonio Grimani and an oil painting on canvas with portraits of famous ancestors.
Chamber of Apollo
The chambers of Apollon , Callisto and Psyche , located in the medieval part of the palace, were decorated by Mannerist artists between 1537 and 1540 . On the vault, in a scheme of the ceiling of a Roman tomb, the dispute between Apollon and Marsyas takes place, about which the Metamorphoses of Ovid report. The four episodes are the work of the Florentine composer Francesco Salviati. Giovanni da Udine is responsible for the stucco work, the figurines of classical divinity, the grotesques and the extraordinary little birds. In the lunette on the wall in the background, an allegorical group of figures from the Roman ambience aims at the origins and fame of the Grimani family. The only sculpture that has been placed there is the head of Thalia , muse of comedy.
Chamber of Callisto
Like the Chamber of Apollo, that dedicated to the nymph Callisto and the story of her metamorphosis refers to the well-known text by Ovid. The story unfolds over five gold-framed panels, from the first - on the front wall by the window - where the sleeping nymph is loved by Jupiter , to the epilogue - in the middle of the ceiling - in which Callisto and her son Arkas to constellations become. Giovanni da Udine, who studied the technique of ancient stucco rediscovered in Rome on classical ruins, shows a test of his great skills on this ceiling by depicting animals, dead nature and twelve putti, which symbolize the months of the year, accompanied by four zodiac signs, created. Some round mirrors in the stucco embellish the arrangement and enrich the stars of the firmament in harmony with the story told.
Chamber of the psyche
The great room, which is divided by a 18th-century wall in two sections, had a single blanket with five figures from the fable of the original design of Cupid and Psyche , which Apuleius says. The octagonal painting on view today is believed to be a copy of the original made by Francesco Salviati in 1539; it forms the center of the composition and shows Psyche, revered as a goddess because of her beauty. On the sides of the windows are fragments of the frescoes with candelabra motifs that adorned the walls and are dated to the 1630s.
Fireplace room
The large, rectangular hall in the oldest part of the building was renovated in the 1630s. It is dominated by the magnificent open fireplace with colored marble slabs above it and with large stucco decorations, where niches and consoles house other archaeological pieces from the Grimani collection. The elegance of the faces shown in profile, the quality of the garlands and the fruits, as well as the amazing monster with an open mouth that you can see in the middle, are reminiscent of the ingenuity and inventive extravagance of Federico Zuccari. Fragments of a fresco decoration that enriched the colonnade of the courtyard are visible on the walls.
Domus Grimani 1594-2019
On May 7, 2019 the exhibition "DOMUS GRIMANI 1594-2019" was opened, which celebrates the temporary return of many artistic masterpieces from ancient Greece, the Roman Empire and the Renaissance from the collection of Giovanni Grimani, as well as the restoration in the rooms where they were until the patriarch's death.
The walk through the exhibition develops through the halls (Gold Chamber, Room of Leaves, Antitribuna) that lead to the Tribuna through its only original entrance.
In addition to the sculptures of the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Venezia , some furnishings from the 16th century from other Venetian museums and private collections are on display to enrich an aristocratic residence from the 16th century: among the most notable works is a tapestry from the manufactory the Medici, designed by Francesco Salviati, two wooden cupboards, bronzed by Jacopo Sansovino and Tiziano Aspetti , two wings in bronze by Girolamo Campagna and a table inlaid with antique marble and lapis lazuli that belonged to the Grimani family.
Individual evidence
- ^ Museo di Palazzo Grimani . Polo Museale del Veneto. March 12, 2012. Retrieved November 8, 2019.
- ^ Giorgio Vasari: Le vite de 'più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architettori . Florence 1906. pp. 488-489.
- ↑ Domus Grimani 1594-2019 . Polo Museale del Veneto. Retrieved November 12, 2019.
swell
- A. Lotto: Il collezionismo artistico dei Grimani di Santa Maria Formosa nel Cinquecento in “Venezia Arti”, No. 17/18, 2003-2004. Pp. 22-31.
- M. de Paoli: Opera fatta diligentissimamente. Restauri di sculture classiche a Venezia tra Quattro e Cinquecento . L'Erma di Bretschneider, Rome 2004.
- B. Aikema: Il collezionismo a Venezia e nel Veneto ai tempi della Serenissima . Marsilio, Venice 2005.
- Marcello Brusegan: La grande guida dei monumenti di Venezia . Newton & Compton, Rome 2005. ISBN 88-541-0475-2 .
- A. Lotto: Un libro di conti (1523–1531) di Marco Grimani, procuratore di San Marco e patriarca di Aquileia in “Atti dell'Istituto Veneto di scienze, lettere ed arti. Class di scienze morali, lettere ed arti ». 165 / I-II. Venice 2007.
- A. Bristot: Palazzo Grimani a Santa Maria Formosa. Storia, arte, restauri . Scripta, Verona 2008. ISBN 978-8896162026 .
- C. Furlan, P. Tosini: I cardinali della Serenissima. Arte e committenza tra Venezia e Roma (1523–1605) . Silvana, Milan 2014.
Web links
- Site of the Museo di Palazzo Grimani
- Website of the Museo di Palazzo Grimani at Polo Museale del Veneto
Coordinates: 45 ° 26 ′ 13 ″ N , 12 ° 20 ′ 32.1 ″ E