Jacopo de‘ Barbari was an artist who was probably born in Venice in the second half of the 15th century. Given the many testimonies between the 16th and 19th centuries that describe him as a Venetian painter, this hypothesis is considered correct by historians.
Only a small part of his activity as a painter is, however, known and documented, in particular that related to the Nordic world and Germany; some important documents from this ‘German’ period were re-read and published some 20 years ago. His activity as an engraver was remarkable, whereas as a painter, attributions are rarer, such as the famous portrait of Luca Pacioli in Naples (Museo di Capodimonte).
Jacopo de’ Barbari was related to the German painter Albrecht Dürer. In those years Albrecht Durer travelled to Venice, but also Luca Pacioli passed through Venice and Leonardo da Vinci passed there. The Venetian painter was in contact with Albrecht Durer, although it is not clear when he met him. We know this relashonship from Albrecht Durer’s Proportionslehre where the German painter mentions his Venetian colleague.
Venice at the turn of the century must have been, not only a beautiful and astonishing city, but a centre of culture, printing and art that was difficult to rival.
The bird’s eye map of Venice
The work for which Jacopo de’ barbari is best known, however, is the famous 1500 bird’s eye map of Venice.
This is the most famous 16th-century woodcut of Venice that exists in a limited number of copies, spread over six sheets due to the technical necessity of printing due to its large size. The print with the bird’s eye view of Venice engraved by Jacopo de’ Barberi is a useful, singular and beautiful tool to have a record of the city in 1500, the date and place stated are in fact: Venetia XCV.
Jacopo de’ Barbari frequented, as already mentioned, the Nordic artistic world and produced the work for the German merchant Anton Kolb.
The precious matrixes of this map in pear wood are preserved and normally exhibited at the Museo Correr in Venice. The Museo Correr also conserves three examples of the first state, another nine examples are conserved in various European museums and one in the United States, the second and third state copies preserved are another eleven copies conserved in various museums around the world.
The art of printing from such large blocks is said to be entirely new, and the division of the representation into 6 equal portions is claimed to have been extremely difficult.
The map numbers
There are eight winds blowing over Venice and two deities; Mercury and Neptune that dominated the scene. If we read the plan together we realise that there are more perspective pictures, shots that cross the city. And they create representational distortions.
In addition to the Mercury, the chubby-cheeked winds blowing in the various directions and a vision of a city very different from today, the map presents various architectural details. Some scholars have counted minutely the details in the map. In the map are represented: 114 churches, 47 convents, 103 bell towers, 127 altanas and 220 domes. In Jacopo de‘ Barberi’s map there is a great presence of life, sailors along the Grand Canal and other canals, gondolas with gondoliers, boats and ships, and there are visual distortions that were perhaps intentional.Perhaps today Jacopo de’ Barbari would have used a camera, or perhaps a drone to show us an urban view of Venice.
How was Jacopo de’ Barbari’s map made?
The map is extraordinary in many ways, especially in terms of how it was made. This image shows an astrolabe, an instrument that may be one of those used in conjunction with complicated geometric and mathematical calculations to realize this stunning and beautiful image of Venice in the 16th century.
FIORELLA PAGOTTO — I am an art historian and a writer, author of essays on art history and biographies of artists. I also deal with the history of architecture and the history of architectural restoration. I have been a guide to the city of Venice and the Veneto villas since 2012, when I passed the Veneto Region exam.
Link alla versione italiana (visioni di Venezia e Hypervenezia)