La Couleur à Venise, 1250-1550, Marbre, Mosaïque, peinture et verrerie (Book)

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The Color of Venice (Book) by Paul Hills. Marble, Mosaic, Painting and Glassware. 1250-1550, Like New, 258 pages. 1999. Hardcover. In French.

Built between sky and sea, Venice is an exceptional site, against nature. Crossroads of trade between East and West, the Serenissima has welcomed and remodeled the ancient heritage and that of neighboring peoples since the 13th century. The end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Renaissance saw the city, strongly marked by the Gothic style, adorn itself with sumptuous palaces and religious buildings, reflections of its power. This book helps the visitor to rediscover the splendor of the Renaissance, where architecture, painting and sculpture mixed their discoveries to offer the Venetian citizen a symphony of gold and exotic pigments. The pictorial and sculptural decorations of Saint Mark’s, churches and palaces were imbued with the luminosity of the lagoon.

The great construction sites of the republic represented by the basilica and the Doge’s Palace stimulated a taste for unstable and shimmering effects. The elegant clothing of the Venetians, the brilliance of their finery, the magnificence of their homes combined with the luxury of the interiors gradually forged the legendary image of the preciousness of this society. If painters proclaimed the omnipotence of color from the 15th century, the contributions of the arts of glass, velvet, silk and the book also participated in the definition of a Venetian specificity.

Venice, by declaring the apogee of color at the dawn of the Renaissance, manifested all the refinement of Venetian culture, the tradition of which continues to this day, a jewel of Italy.