Nel 1982 lo storico Gaetano Cozzi osservava che, dopo l’incendio di Palazzo ducale del 1577, erano state erette due statue in pietra sulle due facciate dell’edificio raffiguranti una la giustizia e l’altra Venezia »in forma di giustizia« in modo tale che osservando il centro del potere dalla piazzetta o arrivando dalla parte della laguna l’emblema della Repubblica era condensato nella sollecitudine nel rendere giustizia ai propri sudditi. Si trattava di una personificazione allegorica di Venezia presente fin dal Medioevo in sculture, medaglie, monete ed emblemi di non univoca lettura. Continue reading
Tag Archives: venice
Marina Vidas (Copenhagen), Personifications of Venice in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century illuminated documents and manuscripts
My paper will analyze images of female personifications of Venice in frontispieces of illuminated manuscripts and in documents, primarily patents by which doges appointed officials to various offices. I will first examine the sources and development of the iconography for the image of a woman symbolizing the city. Then I will discuss illuminations of doges depicted with a female personification of Venice (for example, a miniature showing Doge Marco Barbarigo attended by a woman holding a banner with the Lion of St Mark and personifying Venice, on folio 1 of MS Additional 21463, in the collection of the British Library, London). Particular attention will be paid to the relationship between text and image and the reasons to believe that the female gender of the personification is not coincidental. Continue reading