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Unknown artist

View of the Canal and Church of St. Barnabas with Battle of the Fists, from the series, ca. 1720

Description

Maker

  • Unknown
  • Domenico Lovisa, ca. 1690-ca. 1750, Italian, publisher

Title

View of the Canal and Church of St. Barnabas with Battle of the Fists, from the series

Year

ca. 1720

Medium

Etching on paper

Materials/Techniques

Materials

  • etching,
  • engraving

Supports

  • Medium weight cream laid paper

Dimensions

Plate: 36.7 x 48.3 cm (14 7/16 x 19 inches)

Type

  • Works on Paper,
  • Prints

Credit

Museum Membership Fund

Object Number

66.307

Projects & Publications

Publications

The Festive City

Read Online

Exhibition History

Exhibition History

The Festive City

December 21, 2012 - July 14, 2013

Ritual fistfights and organized combats with crude weapons such as sticks had occurred in Venice since the medieval period, and the most famous took place yearly on a bridge near Campo San Barnabà, seen here. First, a public challenge was accepted; then the bridge was reinforced, if necessary. The fight began with two “armies” of about three hundred men, usually fishermen and arsenal workers, converging on the bridge to the sound of pipes, drums, and trumpets. Here, clothing and hairstyle clearly demarcate the divide between participants and spectators, with the patricians enjoying the spectacle of brawling workers from windows and balconies, like ringside seating for civic theater. Some are drawn into the fight. Fifteen years before this print was published, a particularly vicious fight leading to a church fire resulted in the cessation of bridge battles. Prints like these rendered the history of the city as colorful tales for a new generation of foreign tourists, mixing carnivalesque violence and splendor in a partly fictive image of Old Venice.

Venetian Drawings and Prints of the 18th Century

January 12 - February 5, 1967

Use

The images on this website can enable discovery and collaboration and support new scholarship, and we encourage their use. This object is in the public domain (CC0 1.0). This object is View of the Canal and Church of St. Barnabas with Battle of the Fists, from the series with the accession number of 66.307. To request high-resolution files or new photography, please send an email to imagerequest@risd.edu and include your name and the object's accession number.

Feedback

We view our online collection as a living documents, and our records are frequently revised and enhanced. If you have additional information or have spotted an error, please send feedback to curatorial@risd.edu.

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