Jacopo de' Barbari's View of Venice: Map Making, City Views, and Moralized Geography before the Year 1500

Abstract

Among the hundreds of city views printed in the sixteenth century—bird's-eye views, flat plans, profile views, woodcuts, engravings, and etchings—the anonymous woodcut view of Venice of 1500 stands out for its great size, wealth of detail, and sheer beauty of design and execution.1 It consists of six large sheets, each approximately 66 by 99cm, which together compose a bird's-eye view of the city from the southwest, measuring fully 135 by 282cm (Fig. 1). We distinguish the characteristic fish-like outline of the metropolis, the distant islands of Murano, Torcello, Burano, and Mazzorbo, and the far-off Alps. Within the city we recognize scores of churches, public buildings, and private palaces that are still standing, little changed in their appearance. The perfection of the work is such that one might think it was the product of a long-established, accomplished tradition of printed city views. It is not. It is one of the first large bird's-eye views known to have been published in woodcut, and perhaps the first ever made of Venice. As a work of art and a topographical document, it poses the most basic questions. Who was the artist that made it, how did he make it, i.e., on the basis of what artistic and cartographic models, and what may it have meant to people of the year 1500?2 Taken by itself, it is a strikingly handsome work. If we could gain insight into its genesis and meaning, however, we might be able to determine what kind of achievement the woodcut represented in its day, and so enlarge our basis of appreciation. We should compare it with contemporary works, examine the methods for topographical survey known at the time, and study the general significance of early city views in order to understand the constraints and opportunities that tradition put in the artist's way.

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