The conference, promoted by the Fondazione Giorgio Cini’s Institute of Art History in collaboration with the German Centre for Venetian Studies and conceived to mark the fourth centenary of his death, is dedicated to Leandro Bassano, the fourth son of the renowned Jacopo, who trained in his father’s workshop but soon developed his own style of painting, adopting a colder colourism and an emphasis on drawing in contrast to the more open style of Jacopo and his elder brother Francesco. In addition to the production of large altarpieces, such as The Miracle of St Lucy (1596) in San Giorgio Maggiore and other sacred paintings, Leandro was also involved in the renovation of the Doge’s Palace. Above all, however, he excelled in portraiture. He produced portraits of the reigning doges Marino Grimani, Leonardo Donà, Giovanni Bembo and Antonio Priuli, Venetian ambassadors, cardinals and patriarchs, foreign princes and famous scientists, including a portrait of Galileo Galilei, characterised by an unusually naturalistic mode of depiction for the time, which places them stylistically on the threshold of the Baroque. Of his large group of pupils, only Tiberio Tinelli (1586-1638) and Pedro Orrente (1580-1645, the “Spanish Bassano”) have so far been accurately identified; other pupils await recognition. New sources not yet taken into account, consisting of both archival documents and diplomatic reports, may shed new light on Leandro’s life and works. Likewise, the fortunes of Leandro Bassano deserve to be investigated: not only the figure of the painter as a “European phenomenon”, whose works were to be found in all the major collections of the time, but also more specifically his influence on Dutch painting up to the seventeenth century.

 

In addition to these, other topics will be explored during the two-day symposium, curated by Sabine Engel of the Gemäldegalerie Berlin, Stiftung St. Matthäus and Giorgio Tagliaferro of the University of Warwick: from the issue of the workshop to the artist’s drawings, from literary culture to his relationships with his patrons.

 

The conference, organised with the support of the Fritz Thyssen Stiftung, will be hosted at the German Centre for Venetian Studies on 3 and 5 July, and at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini on 4 July 2024.

 

Download the programme

 

On July 4, a live broadcast is scheduled on the Fondazione Giorgio Cini YouTube channel at this address