View of Venice

Jacopo de’ Barbari’s View of Venice, a woodcut first printed in the year 1500, presents a bird’s-eye portrait of Venice at its peak as an international hub of trade, art, and culture. An artistic and cartographic masterpiece of the Renaissance, the View depicts Venice as a vibrant, waterborne city interconnected by canals and bridges and filled with ornate buildings, elaborate gardens, and seafaring vessels. The contributors to A View of Venice: Portrait of a Renaissance City draw on a high-resolution digital scan of the over nine-foot-wide composite print to examine the complexities of this extraordinary woodcut and portrayal of early modern Venetian life. The essays show how the View constitutes an advanced material artifact of artistic, humanist, and scientific culture. They also outline the ways the print reveals information about the city’s economic and military power, religious and social infrastructures, and cosmopolitan residents. Featuring methodological advancements in the digital humanities, A View of Venice highlights the reality and myths of a topographically unique, mystical city and its place in the world. Contributors. Karen-edis Barzman, Andrea Bellieni, Patricia Fortini Brown, Valeria Cafà, Stanley Chojnacki, Tracy E. Cooper, Giada Damen, Julia A. DeLancey, Piero Falchetta, Ludovica Galeazzo, Maartje van Gelder, Jonathan Glixon, Richard Goy, Anna Christine Swartwood House, Kristin Love Huffman, Holly Hurlburt, Claire Judde de Larivière, Blake de Maria, Martina Massaro, Cosimo Monteleone, Monique O’Connell, Mary Pardo, Giorgio Tagliaferro, Saundra Weddle, Bronwen Wilson, Rangsook Yoon

“This intriguing book guides the reader on a compelling journey around the physical and social milieu of Renaissance Venice. Its magisterial essays invite the viewer to take an imaginary walk through the city’s empty streets, as seen in Jacopo de’ Barbari’s celebrated bird's-eye view of 1500. The book guides us step-by-step from the map’s stunning artistic virtuosity into the cosmopolitan lives of the people who inhabited the fabric of the city.”, “A View of Venice offers an engaging consideration of the ideation, creation, historical significance, idiosyncrasies, and scholarly potential of Jacopo de’ Barbari’s View. A fascinating and valuable collection of research and analysis of de' Barbari’s remarkable print and of the Venice in which he lived and worked, this volume will greatly interest general readers and specialists alike.”

Kristin Love Huffman is an independent scholar of the art, architectural, and urban history of Renaissance Venice and coeditor of Visualizing Venice: Mapping and Modeling Time and Change in a City.