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Venice, poised regally on the Adriatic coast, dominated the Eastern Mediterranean from the twelfth century. Her extensive trade network linked Europe to Byzantium, the Islamic world, and even the distant Asian civilizations explored by Marco Polo. With a unique political system, commercial and technical prowess, and tolerant cultural environment, Venice became the most prosperous city in Europe and a showcase of magnificent art, architecture, music, and fashion. Although eventually overshadowed as a cultural and economic power by emerging nation-states of Western Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Venice followed its own unusual path to lasting material and cultural success.
In collaboration with the Italian Cultural Institute of San Francisco and the Consul General of Italy; Sponsored by Bank of the West; Stanford University; and UC Berkeley.
> Learn more about this program's presenters
> View our Suggested Reading and Resources for this program
> Download the Venice brochure (pdf document)
> Download Venice in Context (pdf document)
Friday, October 22, 2010, 8:00 to 10:15 pm
Introduction to the Program
Patricia Lundberg (Humanities West) and Hon. Fabrizio Marcelli, Consul General of Italy
The Allure of Venice: Civic Myth and Social Reality. Joanne M. Ferraro (Professor and Chair of History, San Diego State University).
What gave Venice its alluring reputation as 'The Most Serene Republic?' Myths like this one fostered civic pride and constructed civic identity, inspiring an elaborate ceremonial symbolism and iconography to represent the floating city. Public space was decorated with icons of Justice and Liberty, while the votive churches of the Redentore and Santa Maria della Salute stood as symbols of pious devotion for staged processions. The pageantry, however, did not mask the hardships of poverty, prostitution, or disease. Social historian Joanne Ferraro explores the civic energies that sustained Venice’s ideal public and sacred symbolism. The city housed courtesans, heretics, sorcerers, and fake saints but also a community of pious donors that built confraternities, hospitals, orphanages, and homes for women whose virtue was endangered.
Performance
The music of Renaissance Venice expresses the excitement and novelty of that great city. This performance presents the more intimate of the Venetian musical styles—love songs, carnival songs, street seller's songs, as well as more formal celebratory compositions by some of the Renaissance master composers. Soprano Allison Zelles-Lloyd, viola-da-gambist and singer David Morris, harpsichordist Gilbert Martinez, and early string player Shira Kammen.
Introduced by Clifford (Kip) Cranna, Director of Music Administration, SF Opera
Saturday, October 23, 2010, 10:00 am to noon and 1:30 to 4:00 pm
Moderator, Paula Findlen (Professor and Chair, History; Co-Director, Center for Medieval and Early Modern Studies; Co-Director, History and Philosophy of Science and Technology Program; Stanford University)
Regnum aquosum: Space and Society in Medieval Venice
Maureen C. Miller (History, UC Berkeley)
This broad introduction narrates the emergence and early development of Venice, giving particular attention to the impact of environmental factors. It traces the gradual fusion of island parishes into a city and highlights the distinctive features of Venice's urban fabric. The lagoon's role in shaping Venetian economic practices and mentalities is also assessed: did an economy based on fish, salt, and shipping yield a more harmonious social and political order?
From Mosaic to Melting Pot in the Venetian Empire
Sally McKee(History, UC Davis)
The city of Venice reflected the preeminent role it played in the conquest and economy of markets around the Mediterranean Sea. Venetian merchants and colonial settlers changed the landscape of the cities and territories they dominated. The Lion of St. Mark appeared on public buildings, fortresses, and warehouses in Constantinople, Tyre, Crete, the Aegean Islands, and Cyprus, while monumental trophies displayed in Venice reminded inhabitants of their city's economic power. But Venetians bore the stamp of empire not just in their clothing, food, art, and language. Venice's stato da mar promoted as well an influx into Venice of people — slaves, wealthy brides, artisans, and sailors — from all over the eastern Mediterranean. Uniquely multicultural in its time, Venice embodied the benefits and contradictions of foreign domination.
Lunch Break
Venetian Musical Instruments
Venice is famous for its many significant contributions to the world of music in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, both as a center of music publishing and as a widely imitated leader in compositional styles. Not the least of its contributions was in the production of musical instruments, particularly woodwinds, string keyboards (harpsichords and virginals), and bowed strings. Herb Myers (Lecturer in Renaissance Winds and Curator of Instruments at Stanford and member of The Whole Noyse) demonstrates copies and shows images of instruments by Venetian builders of the Renaissance and early Baroque — instruments clearly designed to appeal to the eye as well as the ear.
Performance
Italian Cellist Alessandro Palmeri performs on the unique Bassetto Cimapane, the only copy in existence of the cello's grandfather. This very instrument was used in the
orchestra of the greatest Italian baroque composer of all times: Arcangelo Corelli.
With lutenist Richard Savino (CSU Sacramento).
Introduced by Luciano Chessa (Italian Cultural Institute and SF Conservatory).
Architecture and Urbanism Between East and West: The Piazza San Marco of Venice in Context
Max Grossman (Art History, University of Texas El Paso)
Long admired as one of the most beautiful and best preserved public squares in Europe, the Piazza San Marco of Venice was for centuries the civic, religious and commercial epicenter of the Republic. The surrounding monumental edifices, including the Basilica of San Marco, Palazzo Ducale, Zecca, Campanile and Procuratie, bear witness to the commercial successes of the great Venetian fleets and their extensive trade with the city's colonial empire. Moreover, they project the myth of the foundation of Venice by the ancient Romans while declaring the city's status as the principle gateway into Western Europe for Byzantine and Islamic culture.
Panel Discussion with all Presenters and written questions from the Audience.
Related Events:
Humanities West Book Discussion with Lynn Harris
Venice: The Hinge of Europe, 1081-1797, by William McNeill
August 11, 2010
5:30 to 6:30 pm
Board Room, Commonwealth Club of San Francisco
595 Market Street
In this magisterial history, National Book Award winner William H. McNeill chronicles the interactions and disputes between Latin Christians and the Orthodox communities of eastern Europe during the period 1081–1797. Concentrating on Venice as the hinge of European history in the late medieval and early modern period, McNeill explores the technological, economic, and political bases of Venetian power and wealth, and the city's unique status at the frontier between the papal and Orthodox Christian worlds. Lynn Harris will moderate the discussion.
RSVP: commonwealthclub.org
Co-Sponsored by the Humanities Member-Led Forum
Free
Humanities West Book Discussion with Lynn Harris
October 6, 2010
5:30 to 6:30 pm
Board Room, Commonwealth Club of San Francisco
595 Market Street
Join us as we focus on the historical triumphs of city-states, with a special focus on Venice. Joel Kotkin's book, The City: A Global History, highlights the effectiveness of powerful cities in history, and showcases Venice's achievements.
Co-Sponsored by the Humanities Member-Led Forum
Free
Fireside Chat with George Hammond
A Venice Preview
October 19, 2010
7 pm, Orinda Library, Orinda
Free
Antonio e Giuseppe Sardi da Morcote-Architetti ticinesi nella Venezia del Seicento
Exhibit and Lecture by Paola Piffaretti.
October 19, 2010
6:30 pm
Swissnex,
730 Montgomery Street,
The exhibition and lecture by Paola Piffaretti focus on two main aspects of the lives of Antonio and his son Giuseppe Sardi: Antonio’s immigration from Morcote (Canton Ticino, Switzerland) to Venice around 1600 and Antonio’s and Giuseppe’s artistic activity showcased through their artworks: altars, sepulchral monuments, and façades of churches and buildings. Organized by the Consulate General of Switzerland in San Francisco and the Italian Cultural Institute. Reception follows.
RSVP here.
Organized by the Consulate General of Switzerland in San Francisco and the Italian Cultural Institute.
Reception to follow.
Free
Ezra Pound in Venice
A Conversation with Margaret Fisher and Bob Hughes
October 20, 2010
6:30 pm
Italian Cultural Institute
814 Montgomery Street
Ezra Pound, best known for his Cantos, referred to himself as a "poet and composer" in the 1929 edition of Who's Who. Conductor and music scholar Robert Hughes and Margaret Fisher, independent researcher, choreographer, and video director, give a lecture on Pound's relationship with Venice, a city Pound fell in love with at the age of 13, and where he later lived.
RSVP: 415-788-7142 x 18
Organized by the Italian Cultural Institute
Free.
Concert
October 24, 2010
2:00 pm
SF Conservatory of Music
50 Oak Street
Alessandro Palmeri (Bassetto Cimapane), and SF Conservatory of Music Faculty, Richard Savino (lute), Corey Jamason (harpsichord), and Elizabeth Reed (cello). Organized with the Italian Cultural Institute and SF Conservatory of Music.
Tickets $20/$15
415 503 6275
Venice Salon
October 28, 2010
5:30 -6:30 pm
Board Room, Commonwealth Club of San Francisco
595 Market Street
RSVP: commonwealthclub.org
Co-Sponsored by the Humanities Member-Led Forum. Free
Jack Hirschman presents In Danger by Pier Paolo Pasolini
November 3, 2010
7:00 pm
City Lights
261 Columbus Avenue
Organized by City Lights and the Italian Cultural Institute
415-362-8193
Free
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