The Eighteenth Century
The fourth historical period in the series “Storia dell’architettura nel Veneto” published by Marsilio and the Regione Veneto is Il Settecento. The research was conducted by professors Susanna Pasquali and Elisabeth Kieven. The period considered covers the whole century, from the first decades to 1798, the year of the fall of the Venetian Republic. The geographical area consists of the whole region within the boundaries of the Venetian state. This timeline corresponds in the overall Italian artistic production to the slow transition from late Baroque to Neoclassical architecture. In the Veneto it involved variations, artistic developments and fascinating, highly original protagonists, mainly influenced by the crucial presence in the cities and landscape of Palladio’s works. Throughout the century the region was a vital crossroads for all forms of Neo-Palladianism. From local practitioners who had uninterruptedly continued the style of the celebrated Vicentine architect to others who related to his work in various ways and gradually created additions or crossovers. The influential, authoritative British Neo-Palladians in the first two decades of the century and, from the 1860s on, the presence of visiting foreign architects contributed to making the Veneto a kind of workshop experimenting with original approaches. This activity was characterised by an explicit return to the forms of Greek and Roman architecture as a way of going beyond late Baroque architecture, before the process took place almost everywhere in the last years of the century. Two approaches were adopted in the campaign of identifying and acquiring images: on one hand, research into and retrieval of historical iconographic material and, on the other, a new photographic campaign conducted by Studio ORCH_Orsenigo_Chemollo, Venice. To describe the outstanding works of eighteenth-century Veneto architecture a total of 370 images were collected, including 300 from Storia dell’architettura nel Veneto. Il Settecento (2012), published by Marsilio and the Regione Veneto.
17 buildings (211 pictures) have been photographed documenting this period.
