Venice, an exhibition homage to Virgilio Guidi at the Franchetti Gallery
youlast days to visit until January 7, 2022 the exhibition Omaggio a Virgilio Guidi in Venice at the Giorgio Franchetti Gallery. Included in the official program of the celebrations for the 1600th anniversary of the founding of the city, on the imposing second floor of the Ca ‘d’Oro with a view of the loggia overlooking the Grand Canal works painted a century ago by the Venetian master who had considerable influence on the pictorial style of the time. The curators of the exhibition put these early 20th century works in dialogue with other masterpieces of the Italian Renaissance, such as portraits by Sebastiano del Piombo, Tintoretto and Bonifacio de ‘Pitati and two small and rare views by Francesco Guardi, as well as some Flemish still lifes already present in the permanent collection of the Gallery.
The exhibition is open until January 7th
An eye also to the Ca ‘d’Oro
The exhibition is also an opportunity to visit the Ca ‘d’Oro, one of the most famous monumental buildings in Venice with the most celebrated façade on the Grand Canal: in Gothic forms at the beginning of the fifteenth century for the procurator Marino Contarini from Lombard workers then passed property in property up to the prince Troubetzkoj and to a dancer. It was bought in 1895 by the baron Giorgio Franchetti, patron and collector, who started an important restoration in 1916 and then donated it to the Italian state together with a rich collection of works of art that formed the initial endowment of the gallery which bears his name.
On the first floor of the Gallery a chapel with coating marble on the walls and a beautiful fifteenth-century wooden ceiling with gilded coffered carved with roundnews kiosk tempera on canvas painted by Andrea Mantegna at the beginning of the 16th century with the depiction of San Sebastiano.
Among the most notable works on display is the triptych with theAnnunciation, visitation And Transit of the Virgin by Vittor Carpaccio; sculpture of Lombard art; medals; sculptures and reliefs; paintings of Italian school; a Madonna and Child by Jacopo Sansovino; four Flemish tapestries from the 1500s. To admire on the upper floor three large canvases: the Venus and the mirror of Titian, the portrait of the procurator Niccolò Priuli by Jacopo Tintoretto and a portrait of a gentleman by Antonio Van Dyck.
Unmissable is the view of the loggia on the Grand Canal, just as spectacular is the partially covered courtyard with access from the water on the ground floor: in the center there is a well in Verona red marble from the early 1400s with allegorical figures. The flooring is an ornate mosaic wanted and partly executed by the same baron in imitation of that of the basilica of San Marco. the walls are covered with tiles of Greek and Veronese red marble while an ancient stone covers a Roman urn where the ashes of Giorgio Franchetti, who committed suicide in 1922, are kept.
