On the occasion of the celebrations for the 1600th anniversary of the foundation of the lagoon city, in the Doge’s Palace, in Piazza San Marco, the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia has set up a grandiose exhibition that reconstructs, through the most important works of art present in the city collections, the myth of the Serenissima from its origins to today.
Venice turns 1600. Indeed no.
Cities are not born overnight, like Venus from the foam of the sea. The founding of a city is a slow, complex process that takes place in stages. The Serenissima, however, has been able to build around itself a myth of origins that has made a city a civilization.
The myth of Venice
And to nourish the myth, Venice has carefully selected her day and year of birth: 25 March (the Annunciation to the Madonna, according to the liturgical calendar) of 421, the date on which, according to legend, the first stone of the church was laid. of San Giacometo in Rivoalto (Rialto), the founding nucleus of the lagoon city. 421-2021: 1600 years since the foundation of a city which is a universal heritage, how can they be celebrated?
The Municipality of Venice has organized a program of events that began this year and which will also extend to 2022, while the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia has “staged” an impressive exhibition set up by Pier Luigi Pizzi in the symbolic place of the power and glory of the Serenissima: the Doge’s Apartment in the Doge’s Palace, in Piazza San Marco. “Venetia 1600. Births and rebirths” is an opulent exhibition that offers the public the best of works of art from the city collections, in begin with the huge canvas by Vittore Carpaccio (over 3 meters long) with the Lion of San Marco, symbol of the city, restored for the occasion by Save Venice like many other masterpieces on display.
Twelve sections, over 250 works
Twelve themed sections, over 250 works of art including paintings, sculptures, artifacts, rare documents, which follow one another to tell the falls and rebirths of an eternal myth that over the centuries has known splendor and misery, plagues and fires, collapses and reconstructions, freedom and submission, until today, to the Venice of the twentieth century, capital of contemporary art, to the “great waters” and to the climatic changes that are undermining its survival, to the Mose, to the problems of mass tourism …. Visible until 25 March 2022 (in time to celebrate the 1601th birthday) the exhibition was curated by Robert Echols, Frederick Ilchman, Gabriele Matino, Andrea Bellieni under the scientific direction of Gabriella Belli.