Costume books like those by the Venetian engraver Giacomo Franco touted the splendors of the city’s citizens, their elegance, their architecture, the extravagance of their festivities. Franco’s costume book also indicates the centrality of the gondola to Venetian civic identity, even in the early modern period. Above, the Bridge of Sighs, with gondolas, in this early seventeenth-century bird’s eye view by Franco.
Doge, with gondolas
Gondolas at play
Giacomo Franco, Habiti d’hvomeni et donne venetiane: con la processione della serma. Signoria et altri particolari cioè trionfi feste et cerimonie pvbliche della nobilissima città di Venetia ( [Venice] : Giacomo Franco forma in Frezzaria al’insegna del Sole con priuilegio, [1609]). Beinecke call number: J18 F8475 +609
0 Responses to “A Giacomo of Gondolas”