Stories of St. Mark’s Square
A courtyard of antiquities
For just over a month, Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa has been looking thoughtfully at a large marble iPhone. It happens in the courtyard of the National Archaeological Museum of Venice, where Marc Quinn Stele marks the beginning of the HISTORYNOW exhibition. Reopening the museum’s historical courtyard, for this exhibition, with some restoration interventions, returned to public use a monumental area closed for more than ten years. It also intends to experiment with an additional access to the Museums of St. Mark Square system. We, therefore, want to celebrate it with two evening events, Thursday 2 June and Sunday 3 July, of which this post is a preview. Come to visit us in the courtyard. We will tell you some stories of St. Mark’s Square, talking about reuse, collecting, and curiosities relating to the initial stages of the construction of the Procuratie Nuove.
As if it were a sign of destiny, this space, entrance to the Archaeological Museum of Venice since 1926, was also entrance to the house of the Procurator de Supra Federico Contarini, the first “director” of the Public Statuary. Federico was born of the Contarini di San Luca or delle due Torri, a family of great prestige and conspicuous wealth. As a prominent collector of ancient marbles, they nicknamed him “that of antiquities” to distinguish him from the other Contarinis. As Procurator, he lived in the residences of the magistrates of the Republic in St. Mark’s Square, occupying the first apartment adjacent to the Mint. His house housed ancient statues and collections of medals, natural curiosities, and paintings by Giovanni Bellini, Tiziano, Schiavone, and Veronese.
Even today, we read his name on the inscription that in 1581 consecrated the entrance courtyard, built on a design by Vincenzo Scamozzi, to the splendor of the Square and the dignity of the Procuratorial Office (Urbis fori et Procuratoria dignitatis splendori Federicus Contarinus Procurator electus An. Salutis MDLXX sibi et posteris F. C. An. MDLXXXI). Despite the magniloquent and proud tone of these words, engraved in stone, Contarini criticized the rich columned decoration of the court only a few years later. He also recommended using more simple architectural elements in the other courts to be completed.
As a Superintendent over the new buildings, he perhaps changed his mind following the criticism that invested the work of the architect from Vicenza. Scamozzi’s project for the new apartments of the Procurators of St. Mark, on the southern side of the Square, had aroused bitter contrasts. These, in 1597, contributed to his dismissal. Those who succeeded Scamozzi simplified the plans of the buildings. As for the internal courtyards, they changed the pattern of the stairs leading up to the apartments, reduced the number of arcades, positioned only on the ground floor, and eliminated the orders of decorative columns.
Therefore, the first courtyard, that of Contarini’s house with entrance from the Piazzetta, was the only one entirely built according to the original project. Contemporary sources seem enthusiastic about it. The famous guide by Francesco Sansovino, Venetia città nobilissima et singolare, in the edition by Giovanni Stringa, describes it as a «square in the Roman manner», filled with statues and epigraphs. An imposing Antoninus Pius, which could be seen from the square «as far as the other side where the Doge’s Palace lies», gave «not a little grandeur and majesty to that entrance».
In 1608, the Scotsman Thomas Coryat defined the Procuratie Nuove as «a very sumptuous row of building». Contarini’s house was «exceeding beautifully built, all with white stone, with a faire quadrangular court, about the walles whereof many worthy antiquities are to be seene». While he was there, intent on admiring statues and transcribing inscriptions, a young man approached him offering to accompany him to the Library’s antechamber to visit the Public Statuary.
After a few centuries, the same «fair quadrangular court» was again a monumental premise to the museum of antiquities. In the 1920s, Carlo Anti ordered the collections of the Archaeological Museum in the rooms of the former Royal Palace in the Procuratie Nuove. Although the museum guide written by Anti does not mention it, archival photos show the courtyard set up with stone artefacts. Some of them are little unusual, for example the photograph shot on the occasion of the making of some casts for the Mostra Augustea della Romanità in 1937.
It is not clear who conceived the scenographic arrangement of the two great headless statues on either side of the entrance – one female on the type of the Great Herculaneum and one male wearing a toga, both from the first half of the 2nd century AD – and the colossus of Agrippa under the arcade. Probably, it was an idea of Bruna Forlati Tamaro, who later took care of the negotiations for the loan of the antiquities of the civic Museo Correr to the state museum, formalized in 1939. Agrippa had certainly arrived there in 1933, transferred from the Fondaco dei Turchi. Documents preserved in the archives of the Archaeological Museum remind that «in order to transfer it, it was necessary to remove some added parts». Then the dilemma arose as to whether it was appropriate «to recompose the statue as before» or reassemble only the base and feet. They decided to eliminate the other Renaissance restorations, unnecessary for the sculpture stability. They had been realized when Agrippa was in another famous courtyard of antiquities, that of Palazzo Grimani in Santa Maria Formosa.
For centuries, the Agrippa Grimani had been under the loggia opposite the water gate on the San Severo canal, facing a statue of Augustus. His story alone would offer material for a book. Suffice it to say here it was destined for public enjoyment twice: by Giovanni Grimani in 1587 and by Michele Grimani in 1862, arriving at the Museo Correr two years later. Finally, they placed it in Scamozzi’s courtyard, fully visible from Piazzetta San Marco like the Antoninus Pius at the time of Contarini. In the 20th century, the statue became an integral part of the public image of the Archaeological Museum and its beautiful entrance courtyard. There many valuable antiquities contribute to the splendor of the Piazza still today.
MDP
For quotes and insights: F. Sansovino, G. Stringa, Venetia città nobilissima et singolare, Venezia 1604, p. 258; T. Coryat, Coryat’s Crudities, Glasgow 1905, pp. 319-321; W. Wolters, Piazza San Marco a Venezia, Verona 2018, pp. 120-126.
