Zanotto - Pinacoteca della Imp. Reg. Accademia Veneta - 1830

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THE TREASURES OF VENETIAN PAINTING – 60 ENGRAVINGS FROM THE ACCADEMIA DI BELLE ARTI
A monumental illustrated catalog of Venetian painting kept in the Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia. Published in 1830, the volume documents masterpieces by Titian, Bellini, Carpaccio, Bonifazio, Catena, Palma il Giovane and other masters. The iconographic apparatus comprises 60 full-page copper engravings and 33 portraits of artists. The engravings, executed by various nineteenth-century Venetian specialists, transform the volume into a true pinacotheca on paper. A fresh and margin-rich exemplar; one of the two volumes that make up the complete work is present.

ABSTRACT
Pinacoteca della Imp. Reg. Accademia Veneta delle Belle Arti di Francesco Zanotto, Venice, Tipografia di Commercio, 1830, is one of the most significant nineteenth-century publishing ventures dedicated to documenting Venetian painting collections. The 1830 edition is indeed catalogued in institutional bibliographic catalogs. This exemplar comprises one volume of the work, illustrated with 60 full-page copper engravings, accompanied by historical-critical texts and 33 portraits of the artists. The plates reproduce paintings of the great Venetian tradition kept in the Academy: from works by Titian Vecellio to those by Giovanni Bellini, Vittore Carpaccio, Bonifazio Veronese, Vincenzo Catena, Palma il Giovane, Francesco Bissolo and many others. Each painting is accompanied by a discussion devoted to the work and its author, turning the book into an early and monumental illustrated museum catalog of Venetian painting.

WHY TO BUY
60 FULL-PAGE COPPER ENGRAVINGS – Sixty large copper-engraved plates dedicated to the Academy’s masterpieces; bibliographic documentation confirms that the first series of the work precisely comprised 60 plates.
33 ARTISTS’ PORTRAITS – The volume also includes 33 portraits, creating a true parallel gallery of the protagonists of the Venetian school.
VENETIAN MASTERPIECES – Titian, Bellini, Carpaccio, Bonifazio, Catena, Palma and other great masters documented through engravings and extensive historical-artistic notes.
MONUMENTAL FOLIO – Large format, strong paper and wide margins, expressly designed to enhance the engravings.
EARLY MUSEUM CATALOGUE – A significant testimony to the birth of modern cataloguing and dissemination of the great public art collections of Venice.

MARKET VALUE
The present exemplar preserves a particularly substantial apparatus of 60 full-page plates and 33 portraits, only one volume of the complete work, and is on the antiquarian market at about €700.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION AND CONDITION
Nineteenth-century half-leather binding, smooth spine with title and ornaments impressed in gold, boards bound in blue marbled paper. Placement label at the foot of the spine. Impression on strong and fresh paper, with wide margins. Important iconographic apparatus consisting of 60 full-page copper engravings depicting works from the Pinacoteca of the Imperial Royal Academy of Venetian Fine Arts and 33 portraits of painters. Among the engravers documented in the work are, among others, Comirato, Zuliani, Viviani and Zandomeneghi; bibliographic catalogs record a multiplicity of engravers and collaborators. Slight signs of use to the binding, with superficial abrasions to the spine and margins of the boards; some pages show physiological foxing. This is an incomplete work: a volume of the two original ones is present. In old books with a multi-centuries-old history, there may be some imperfections not always noted in the description. This listing contains AI Visuals. Refer to the original photographs to verify the actual condition of the item. The images are an integral part of the description. 1 volume of 2: (199) leaves; 60 full-page engravings; 33 portraits.

FULL TITLE AND AUTHOR
Pinacoteca della Imp. Reg. Accademia Veneta delle Belle Arti.
Venice, by the Tipografia di Commercio, 1830.
Francesco Zanotto.

CONTEXT AND SIGNIFICANCE
The Zanotto Pinacoteca was born at a crucial moment in the history of Venetian collections. The Academy of Fine Arts had become not only a teaching institution but also one of the main places of preservation and study of the great painting tradition of the Serenissima. Zanotto conceived the work as a kind of printed museum: alongside the engraved reproduction of the painting, he added a text devoted to the composition, style, attribution, and biography of the painter. The photographs show, among others, chapters dedicated to the Convito in casa di Levi by Paolo Caliari, the Baptism in the Desert and the Dedication of Mary to the Temple by Titian, the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple by Carpaccio, the Virgin with her Divine Son by Giovanni Bellini, and the Adoration of the Kings by Bonifazio Veronese. The work thus constitutes a significant testimony of nineteenth-century Venetian art historiography and of the dissemination of the works preserved in public collections through engraving.

BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR
Francesco Zanotto (1794–1863) was an art historian, writer and Venetian scholar, particularly active in documenting the city’s artistic and monumental heritage. His activity sits within the great nineteenth-century movement of rediscovery and systematization of the history of Venetian art. Through illustrated works and historical-artistic descriptions, he contributed to the knowledge of the masters of the Venetian school and of the city’s collections. The Pinacoteca della Imp. Reg. Accademia Veneta delle Belle Arti stands as one of his most ambitious publishing ventures, built through the collaboration of numerous draftsmen and engravers.

PRINTING HISTORY AND CIRCULATION
The first series of the Pinacoteca began to appear in installments: one copy preserved in its original editorial form documents 30 fascicles, each with two plates, for a total of 60 engravings. The first series was published between 1831 and 1832, while the work was subsequently continued and completed with a second part. Bibliography records the Venetian edition of Tipografia di Commercio, 1830, corresponding to the title page of the present exemplar. The complete work is normally described in two volumes, with 100 engraved plates in total; an exemplar cataloged at auction with 100 plates and 52 portraits of painters. The present volume, with 60 plates and 33 portraits, thus represents a substantial and iconographically autonomous part of the great publishing enterprise.

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCES
Biblioteca Nazionale Braidense – Pinacoteca della Imp. Reg. Accademia veneta delle belle arti illustrata da Francesco Zanotto, Venezia, Tipografia di Commercio, 1830; bibliographic record LO1E013480.
WorldCat / international bibliographic catalogs – the work is classified within nineteenth-century Italian engraving, painters’ biographies, and catalogs of Italian and Venetian painting.
Bibliographic documentation also records numerous engravers and collaborators involved in the realization of the plates, confirming the collective and technically ambitious nature of this monumental publishing enterprise.