Category Archives: Northern Italy

Artists of the Pustertal

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Innichen centre. Innichen/San Candido is a typical town of the Pustertal, with steep shingled roofs, Baroque churches and the jagged peaks of the Dolomites reaching into the sky.

The Pustertal (in Italian, Val Pusteria) is a valley in the mountainous South Tyrol region of Northern Italy, the region on the border of Italy and Austria and known in Italian as Alto Adige. Until the end of the First World War, this was territory that belonged to the Empire of Austria-Hungary. Two rivers flow along the valley: the Rienz, which flows west into the Eisack from the watershed at Toblach; and the Drau/Drava, which flows east into Austria and Croatia, eventually emptying into the Danube. What might appear at first sight to be a remote alpine valley, hemmed in by vast dolomitic peaks, cloaked in larch and fir and snowed in for much of the year, has in fact always been an important trade route and has been inhabited for a very long time, by prehistoric humankind and subsequently by Illyrians and Rhaetians—and then by the Romans, who left traces of a settlement named Sebatum in the town of St Lorenzen. The Pustertal was also an important outpost of early medieval Christianity: the Benedictine abbey at Innichen/San Candido, with its beautiful and imposing Romanesque church, was founded in 769 in ‘campo gelau’, the ‘icy field’.

In the 15th century, the Pustertal gave birth to a thriving school of painters and sculptors. Most worked in a northern Gothic style and many of them still remain anyonymous. Their names have not come down to us and very little, if anything, is known of their lives. Instead we have works attributed simply to the ‘Master of Uttenheim’, for instance, or the ‘Master of Niederolang’. Other masters are known by a first name appended to the town or village where they were active: ‘Leonhard of Brixen’ and his pupil ‘Simon of Taisten’ are two examples. Although the output of these painters and sculptors is primitive and stylised in many ways, it is always lively and amusing, often with humorous interjections and wry comments on everyday life. The world that they depict, in their scenes from scripture and hagiography, is the world in which they lived, with the features and lineaments of the people who inhabited the Pustertal at the time, as well as their costumes and landscape. It is also through these artists that the ideas of the Renaissance first reach the alps. While the talents of many of them might be said to be homely, there was clearly collaboration and an exchange of ideas going on; and some of the artists travelled to central Italy, bringing back a lot of what they had learned of perspective and depiction of the human form. Among them, one true genius emerges: Michael Pacher (1430/5–98. Born in the 1430s, he began his apprenticeship in Bruneck, from where he went to Padua, where he came into contact with the Venetian and Florentine art that was to have such a profound and visible influence on his own. Pacher is one of the greatest masters of the Tyrolean late Gothic, credited with bringing Italian Renaissance ideas of art to the Alps. He later opened a workshop in Bruneck, before moving to Salzburg, where he died.

Frescoes and altarpieces by the hands of these artists are preserved in churches and museums throughout the Pustertal region, in the places underlined in red on the map below.

What to see

1. Bressanone/Brixen. The Diocesan Museum in the Hofburg, the former seat of the Prince-Bishops, has two rooms devoted to sculpture and painting by Leonhard of Brixen, an artist who ran a successful workshop which he later passed on to his son.

Figure from a group depicting the Coronation of the Virgin, with the narrow, elongated nose often seen in Leonhard of Brizen’s work.

2. Novacella/Neustift. The excellent museum of the Augustinian priory has works by many artists of the Pustertal school, among them Friedrich Pacher (who may have been Michael Pacher’s brother), Leonhard of Brixen, the Master of Uttenheim and Master of Niederolang. The former high altarpiece of the priory church, by Michael Pacher, is now—thanks to Napoleon—in Munich.

From the collection of Neustift Abbey: Ascension of Christ (c.1515) by the Master of Niederolang, an artist who takes his name from the Pustertal village known as Valdaora in Italian. While the faces are sometimes cartoonish, recognisable expressions are nonetheless captured. Is the man looking out at us, top right, a self-portrait of the artist?
From the collection of Neustift Abbey: St Augustine in his Study by the Master of Uttenheim (c. 1470). The saint meditates on the mystery of the Holy Trinity, symbolised by the haloed head with three faces in the top right of the picture space. The texture of the gold brocade drapery is beautifully rendered, as is the expression of curiosity on the face of the woman sneakily looking over Augustine’s shoulder. Uttenheim, the village from which this artist takes his name, is in the valley leading north from the Pustertal, at the head of which is Campo Tures/Sand in Taufers. The altarpiece from the church there, by the same artist, is now in the Belvedere in Vienna.
Another scene from the same altarpiece as above, by the Master of Uttenheim. Here St Augustine (in pale brown) is shown rapt and wide-eyed as he listens to the preaching of St Ambrose in Milan, sitting next to a fashionably dressed young man similarly captivated. Ambrose appears to have got into his stride, ticking items off on his fingers. Meanwhile two members of his audience, a man in the back row and a woman at the front, have fallen fast asleep.

3. San Lorenzo/St Lorenzen. The parish church has a very fine gilded and painted sculpture of the Madonna and Child by Michael Pacher. The Child holds a bunch of black grapes, one of which he has plucked to taste.

Madonna and Child by Michael Pacher, in the church of San Lorenzo/St Lorenzen.

4. Tesido/Taisten. Here the parish church has a tiny ceiling boss of the Madonna and Child by Michael Pacher. The little chapel of St George has exterior frescoes by Simon of Taisten.

External frescoes of St Christopher are a feature of churches and chapels in the South Tyrol. This example, which adorns the chapel of St George in Tesido/Tasiten, is by the eponymous Simon of Taisten, thought to have been born in the village. Simon is known to have been an astute businessman as well as an artist and the workshop which he ran was a successful one, concentrating on frescoes in the dry, summer months and on painted panels for altarpieces in the winter. He also produced secular works for his patrons.

5. San Candido/Innichen. The exterior of the south portal of the old abbey church has a fresco of the patron saints St Candidus and St Corbinian by Michael Pacher. Deep in the forest to the north of the town is the little chapel of St Sylvester, which has charming apse frescoes attributed to Leonhard of Brixen.

The Visitation, attributed to Leonhard of Brixen, in the tiny chapel of St Sylvester above San Candido/Innichen. The Virgin Mary, pregnant with Jesus, is shown greeting her kinswoman Elizabeth, who despite her advanced age, is miraculously also pregnant, with John the Baptist. The artist charmingly depicts the two babies in embryo.

6. Campo Tures/Sand in Taufers. The castle has paintings by Michael Pacher.

7. Monguelfo/Welsberg. Outside the parish church is a painted tabernacle with a Madonna and Child, Crucifixion and other scenes by Michael Pacher. Though only partially conserved and much restored, it is perhaps the best place in the Pustertal to gain an impression of how modern this artist’s style was, and must have seemed in his day.

Head of the Virgin, from the tabernacle in Monguelfo/Welsberg. Michael Pacher is not known to have gone to Florence, but he did go to Padua, where Donatello was at work. Looking at the face and hair of this Madonna, it is difficult to imagine that he did not at some point see the art of Botticelli or Ghirlandaio.
Detail from Botticelli’s Birth of Venus (1480s) in the Uffizi, Florence (photo: Wikimedia).

8. Brunico/Bruneck. Although Bruneck, where Michael Pacher lived and had his studio, has no works by the master, the building where he lived and worked, on the main street of the old town, is proudly emblazoned with his name.

Façade of the building where Michael Pacher had his studio, in Bruneck.
Blue Guide Trentino & the South Tyrol

The Blessed Josef Mayr-Nusser

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The life of Josef Mayr-Nusser (1910-1945) is a chapter in the complicated story of South Tyrol.  Born in Bolzano Bozen, he was an active German speaking Catholic, contributor to the subversive young Catholic newssheet Tiroler Jugendwacht (subversive because the Italian government banned use of the German word Jugendwacht – literally “youth watch”).  Despite reservations about Italy’s treatment of the South Tyrol, he was unmoved by the Nazis’ siren calls to German speakers and became a key member of the South Tyrolean resistance group, the Andreas Hofer Bund. 

The Blessed Josef Mayr-Nusser, beatified by Pope Francis for his heroism in defence of South Tyrol and martyrdom by the Nazis.

This Bund was an anti-Nazi association and resistance movement, formed in opposition to Hitler’s and Mussolini’s “Option Agreement” of October / November 1939, by which the German- and Ladin-speaking inhabitants of South Tyrol were given the “option” of either remaining in their homes and facing Italianisation or migrating to the Germanic “homeland” – in this case the recently seized lands of Western Poland.  The Bund was formed particularly to protect the remainers (“Dableiber”) from the aggression of the leavers (“Optanteren”).  Of the 75,000 who eventually opted for migration – mainly the landless rural poor, few burghers and almost no farmers – many got no further than the Austrian Tyrol, and after the war around one third of them returned.

When Mayr-Nusser was drafted into the SS he refused to swear an oath of allegiance to Hitler, claiming it contrary to his faith.  For this he was sentenced to death.  Beatified by Pope Francis in 2016, he is referred to as the Martyr of the First Commandment (“Thou shalt have no other gods before me”). His reliquary casket is in the south aisle of Bozen Cathedral.

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Venice attempts to stem the tide

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(and some news from Rome and Florence)

by Alta Macadam

The long-discussed entrance restrictions to Venice are finally to become operational on 25th April. The system is designed to limit the numbers of day-trippers, who come to the city for just a few hours (often as part of a tour group) and from whom the city reaps very little benefit, if any. Overtourism has damaged Venice in many ways and the declared aim is to reduce the crowds, encourage longer visits and improve the quality of life for residents. It is also a way in which visitors can be monitored so that certain days of the year do not become too crowded, and it provides an incentive to visitors to come at the least crowded periods. It is a genuine experiment to regulate the flow. Venice is supposedly the first city in the world to undertake this experiment.

All the (fairly complicated) details are given here.

This is the only official City of Venice tourist information website, even though it rarely comes up as one of your first search results, and the website itself adds to the confusion by not giving any information on the ‘Venice access (entry) fee’ on its opening page (you have to go to the next page).

The first step is to look on the calendar to see which days are subject to the restrictions (these generally include all weekends). On these days, if you are entering the city between 8.30 am and 4pm, you are subject to an entrance fee of 5 euro. (The 4pm limit means people are free to come in to the city in the evening – for instance those who might want to have dinner there or attend a concert).

You are not subject to an entry fee if you are staying overnight or longer somewhere in the historic city (or even within the municipal area, which includes Mestre on the mainland) in any type of accommodation. However, you are now obliged to ‘register’ by filling out a form to get a QR code to show that you are exempt from the entrance fee as the “guest of an accommodation facility”. On the form provided, the names of everyone staying with you, the dates of your stay and the name of the place where you are staying, will all be required. You will need to use the QR code for access and show to any official doing a check while you are in the city.

For a direct link to the forms to fill in, if you are staying in Venice for at least one night), see here.

For the exemption rules (which include children under 14 and the disabled), see here.

It seems there will be one or two offices in Venice, including at the railway station, where you will be able to register and pay but clearly you are much better off to arrive fully armed with your QR code. There is also talk of a number of access points (airport, railway station, car parks, etc.) where you will be required to have your QR code passed.

If, sadly, you can only visit the city for a day, see the website for the procedures, which include payment of an entrance fee.

Many people in Italy and abroad will be eagerly waiting to see how this new system works and if it produces the hoped-for results. For now, the signs are positive and everyone is feeling optimistic.

This long thought-out attempted solution to Venice’s problems seems far distant from the latest campaign to encourage tourism by the flamboyant Minister of Tourism. One wonders if it isn’t going a bit too far to dress up Botticelli’s Venus (a detail from his iconic Birth of Venus) in a T-shirt and show her eating a pizza on Lake Como, or in shorts outside the Colosseum. She is touted as the Minister’s ‘virtual influencer’. The whole campaign is bizarrely titled ‘Open to Meraviglia’.

Rome
A few months ago some very negative news came in from Rome. It is now necessary to purchase a ticket (and therefore join a queue) to enter the Pantheon, the greatest ancient building in the city to have survived virtually intact. This was met with great sadness by many inhabitants and visitors alike as, without an entrance ticket and the paraphernalia that entails, it had always been a place to savour whenever one was in the vicinity: with even just a few minutes to spare, one could stand in one of the most extraordinary spaces ever created. The disappointing decision to impose an entry fee was taken by the Cultural Ministry and the Roman diocese in June 2023.

Florence
One of the most curious recent events in Florence has been the decision of Eike Schmidt to stand for Mayor in the forthcoming local election (to be held in June). After eight years as the much-admired director of the Uffizi, he has put on hold his next appointment to the Capodimonte museum in Naples, become an Italian citizen, and begun his campaign in Florence, running as an independent. He launched his campaign for “Firenze Magnifica” on 17th April.

Alta Macadam is the author of Blue Guides to Venice, Rome and Florence.

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Most rare in marble portraits

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The above title is a quote from Giorgio Vasari. They are the words he used, in his famous Lives of the Artists, to describe Alessandro Vittoria (1525–1608), a man who became one of the greatest Italian sculptors of his age.

Vittoria was born in Trento, a city in the far north of Italy, on the border of the Italian and German-speaking worlds. In the mid-16th century, when Vittoria was a young man, it played host to the famous eccelsiastical council convoked to discuss the threats posed by the growth of Protestantism and to agree a response. A portrait of Vittoria exists from this time, painted by another north Italian, Giovanni Battista Moroni, from Bergamo. Moroni, like many other artists, had gone to Trento, attracted by the opportunities presented by the prominent Council delegates, many of whom wished to have their likenesses taken. In Moroni’s portrait (now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna), Vittoria appears as a confident young man holding a small marble torso. The musculature of this torso is rather peculiar: either Vittoria was very young at the time and not yet very skilled, or else Moroni had never studied anatomy, but nevertheless it serves as an emblem of the kind of sculpture that would make Vittoria famous. He developed a prodigious skill at sculpting portraits in the style of ancient Roman busts, a genre he effectively re-invented and re-popularised, and he became sought-after by numerous patrons. In Vittoria’s native Trento today, there is a square that bears his name with an early 20th-century statue in it showing a middle-aged man holding a sculptor’s chisel, dressed in a frock coat and looking like a dapper Edwardian official from some municipal board of works. He is nothing at all like the confident and self-aware young man that Moroni depicted and which hangs in Vienna. One suspects that the young Vittoria was very confident indeed.

Portrait of Alessandro Vittoria by Giovanni Battista Moroni. Kunsthistorisches Musem, Vienna.

Vittoria was also skilled in plasterwork. When he first went to Venice, he was taken on by the sculptor and architect Jacopo Sansovino, with whom he worked on the steep barrel-vaulted entrance staircase to the Biblioteca Marciana, a space overwhelmingly encrusted with painted stucco. If Vittoria had stuck to this kind of thing, it is unlikely that today we would know his name. The skill is very great, but the overall effect is too much. It is perhaps lucky for posterity that he quarrelled with Sansovino and found a different outlet for his talents. He went on to sculpt bust after bust of well-fed statesman and administrators, and today they provide a fascinating window on an age. In his native Trento, in the magnificent Castello di Buonconsiglio, there are two characteristic portrait busts of Venetian notables. But by far the best place to admire Vittoria’s work is Venice: in Ca’ d’Oro, in the Frari, the Museo Correr, the Doge’s Palace.

Two examples of Vittoria’s portrait busts of dignitaries of his day. In Castello di Buonconsiglio, Trento (top) and in Ca’ D’Oro, Venice (bottom).

Vittoria was a contemporary of Tintoretto and Veronese, and with them he helped Venice in her project of self-glamorisation in an era when her best days were already beginning to be behind her. We know where Vittoria lived in Venice: his house was just off the Riva degli Schiavoni behind the church of the Pietà. A hotel stands on the site of the building today. Here he had a beautiful garden and a fine collection of works of art, including a marvellous self-portrait by Parmagianino, shown reflected in a convex mirror (also now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum). When he died, he was buried in the nearby church of San Zaccaria: his tomb slab is very simple, a black flagstone laid in the floor of the sanctuary. On the wall next to it, however, is an elaborate monument designed by himself with a portrait bust in the antique style and mourning figures of Sculpture, Painting and Architecture.

Monument to Alessandro Vittoria in San Zaccaria, Venice. The Latin description praises him as someone ‘who when alive drew out from marble the faces of the living’. (The sculptures of Architecture and Painting appear to have been miscaptioned.)

Annabel Barber

See here for details of our relevant titles: Blue Guide Venice and Blue Guide Trentino & the South Tyrol.

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Venice in Peril

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The UK-based Venice in Peril Fund is one of several international charities devoted to safeguarding the future of this unique city. Guy Elliott, Chairman of Venice in Peril, outlines some of its recent projects.

The Venice in Peril Fund was founded in 1971, succeeding an earlier fund instituted in 1966 in response to that year’s devastating floods. Today, more than 50 years later, Venice may be in even greater peril. Climate change is increasing the frequency of high tide occurrences, known as Acqua alta. These, as well as causing flooding, allow saline penetration of the brick which lies above the hard Istrian stone foundations. In certain atmospheric conditions, these saline deposits crystallise, causing the mortar and brick to fragment. Rising sea levels will only accentuate this problem. Other factors, such as more turbulent water traffic and deteriorating air quality, also contribute to the degradation. Taken together these threats pose an existential threat to the city.

Over this long period, Venice in Peril has focused chiefly on the conservation of monuments, especially in stone, for example the Porta della Carta (Doge’s Palace) or the Loggetta around the campanile. But the charity has also conserved works of art and smaller projects ranging from a globe by Vincenzo Coronelli to 18 Goldoni puppets. Over 75 projects have been carried out using its funding alongside the City, Museum and Church authorities. At the same time the charity has aimed to broaden public understanding of the city’s challenges. 

One of Venice in Peril’s most recently completed conservation projects is the monument to Antonio Canova in the Frari church. Within it lies his heart. The rest of his remains—except for his right hand, which is in the Accademia Galleries—are at Possagno, his birthplace. The remarkable pyramid-shaped monument, built according to Canova’s design for a monument to Titian that was never executed, was inaugurated on the 200th anniversary of the great sculptor‘s death. British donors were prominent among those who financed its construction in the 1820s and Venice in Peril’s present supporters carry on the same proud tradition. The conservation project took ten years to complete and its challenges reflect all the environmental assaults described above. In addition, the problems of earlier conservation efforts (which followed best practice at the time) needed to be reversed. Major projects such as this provide training opportunities for young conservators as well as highlighting the harmful effects of neglecting maintenance, which is everywhere accorded low priority.

Detail of the restored monument to Canova, in the Frari church.

These same problems of Venice’s foundations being eaten away or suffering other environmental damage have been the focus of the charity in many other projects. One example is at the imposing Gothic church of Madonna del Orto in Cannaregio. Another is at the Basilica of Torcello, where recently the iconostasis was conserved. An ongoing project is at the Archivo de Stato, where following our earlier restorations of its main monumental doorway and its Baroque well-head, further interventions are planned to the archangels guarding the corners of this former cloister, once attached to the Frari. 

The Italian authorities, despite many competing demands placed on them, are not altogether neglecting the challenges which Venice faces. The massive MOSE project, which consists of retractable floodgates built between the outermost islands of the lagoon, has been a welcome development—unfortunately not operational for the Acqua alta of 2019, the worst since 1966. The MOSE barriers were first raised in October 2020. On a smaller scale, a glass barrier has been put in place around San Marco, reflecting the basilica’s position as one of the lowest lying points in the city. Venice in Peril has likewise assisted San Nicolò dei Mendicoli with similar counter-measures, the latest after the 2019 flooding, in a series of interventions at the church made since the 1970s. 

Venice’s challenges are not confined to the environment. As is well known, giant cruise liners have been controversial. Their enormous scale, dwarfing the city’s greatest monuments, caused much offence. Since 2021 ships over 25,000 tonnes are no longer permitted to sail up the Giudecca Canal or moor in the basin of San Marco. They instead take a different route to the port of Marghera on the mainland. While this diminishes the visual impact, nothing changes the disgorgement of very large numbers of passengers who make a negligible contribution to the city’s economy since they tend not to stay overnight. In 2019, the last full year before the pandemic, the city had 5.5 m overnight stays and 13 m overall visitors. The pandemic emptied Venice, but since 2022 tourism has resumed, with all that that entails. 

The city’s overdependence on tourism has changed the housing rental sector. Many residents have quit the old city for the mainland, renting out their apartments, often in an unregulated manner. This undermines the formal hotel and pensione sector. It also accelerates depopulation. Venice’s present population, which has been consistently falling, is around 50,000 as against its peak of 175,000 in the early 1950s. This partly reflects the lack of employment prospects, especially for young people, except in the tourist sector. 

As well as diverting the giant cruise liners, a daily levy has been introduced for day trippers. This innovation, like several others, has been controversial. But the scale of challenges that Venice faces requires considerable imagination. In many areas, solutions have proved elusive. Often, unpleasant choices need to be made in order to safeguard one of mankind’s most sublime achievements. This will not be the last such case. 

Venice in Peril Fund offers a unique and worthwhile channel to those who love the city, enabling them to discover more about Venice while contributing to conservation that can encourage sustainability and assist economic renewal. The website www.veniceinperil.org gives details about past and present projects and enables donations to be made easily. Funds are always needed to keep pace with the seemingly inexhaustible list of endangered buildings, monuments, sculptures and works of art. The charity holds regular events for its supporters, and can be followed on Twitter and Instagram.

Venice in Peril thanks the publishers of the excellent Blue Guide for again giving us space to explain our purpose and why it matters to those who love the city.

Guy Elliott, Chairman, Venice in Peril Fund CIO

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