The Villa Barbaro at Maser: science, philosophy, and the family in Venetian Renaissance art

Abstract

"Through a careful description of its architecture, paintings and sculptures, this book offers the first comprehensive analysis of the Villa Barbaro at Maser, one of the most famous masterpieces of the Italian Renaissance. Commissioned and designed by Daniele Barbaro, a leading humanist of the Venetian Renaissance, and his brother Marc'Antonio, an important politician of the Republic of Venice and a talented amateur artist, the villa's architecture and painted decoration were created by two canonical figures of Renaissance art: the architect Andrea Palladio and the painter Paolo Veronese. By offering a new and holistic reading of the iconographic program of Villa Barbaro, the study highlights in particular the importance of women, childbirth and motherhood. With a strong multidisciplinary approach, the book is also a contribution to the history of astronomy, philosophy and domesticity in sixteenth-century Venice.."-- Publisher's website.

Contents

Introduction. The family and their artists: A portrait gallery -- Setting up the investigation: Historiography and method -- The woman in white. The sundials -- Daniele Barbaro the astronomer -- The cosmos in a villa: The Hall of Olympus -- The identity of the woman in white -- When the sun meets the moon: A dragon story -- Eclipses, the writing of history, and the reform of the calendar -- The room of virtues: Daniele Barbaro between reason and faith -- The room of fortune and Venetian geopolitics -- Delos in terraferma. The entrance to the villa: Time, the sea, and a marriage -- The double-headed eagle: Francesco Barbaro, Venice, and the East -- Welcome to the villa: The concept of hospitality and Villa Barbaro as a theater stage -- The Hymenaeus room: Untying the girdle -- The Bacchus room: The civilizing process -- Keeping the fire alive: The chimneypieces in the Hymenaeus and Bacchus rooms -- The Cruciform Hall, Part 1: Childbirth -- The Cruciform Hall, Part 2: Crusade -- The nymphaeum: An image of fertility -- The grotto: Socrates, Daniele Barbaro, and the immortality of the soul -- The ten statues of the hemicycle -- Civil happiness -- Conclusion -- Epilogue: Marina Volpi, Tomaso Buzzi, and the "restoration" of the 1930s -- General plan of Villa Barbaro.