View Of The Rialto Bridge

Giovanni Bonomi (Venice, active in the second half of the 19th century)

View of the Rialto Bridge

Oil on canvas, cm 37 x 49

With frame cm 43 x 56

Signed "G. Bonomi" bottom right

The genre of Venetian vedutism developed at the beginning of the eighteenth century, in conjunction with the ever-increasing number of those, among scholars and foreign artists, who had wished to bring home a memory of the wonders of the lagoon. The pioneering production of the first Canaletto and the affirmation of the positive use of scientific means such as the optical camera produced a solid affirmation of the Venetian panoramas, which began to depopulate throughout Italy. In the 19th century, various artistic currents of Romanticism, Vedutism and Historicism, which began in the previous century, also supported the preferential role to be given to paintings with a lagoon subject.The present offers a romantic view of the Grand Canal with the Rialto Bridge, taken in the tranquillity of a quiet Venetian evening. The construction of the bridge dates back, in the design, to the Middle Ages: as reported by Lorenzetti (Guide of Venice) since 1172 the doge Sebastiano Ziani proposed the idea of joining the two opposite banks of the canal through a bridge of boats; Nicolò Baratieri fulfilled this desire in 1181, with the so-called Quartarolo bridge, from the name of the coin that charged a toll, or the coin, due to its relative proximity to the premises of the Mint. The randomness of the boat bridge was replaced in XIII by a solid wooden structure, rebuilt several times during the following centuries; the Miracle of the Cross at the Rialto Bridge by Vittore Carpaccio (Venice, Gallerie dell'Accademia, 1496 ca.) offers meticulous evidence of this. The bridge was later named after the Rivoalto market that took place there. The urgency of a continuous maintenance of the wooden skeleton prompted the Council to decide on a tender for the design and construction of its replacement in stone: the competition, which was announced in 1554, involved Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola, Palladio and Sansovino. The realization of the project of the Venetian Antonio da Ponte was arranged: the construction, begun in 1588, ended in 1592.

Giovanni Bonomi, artist of the present painting, was mainly dedicated to genre painting and to the more colorfully vivid Venetian vedutism, as it happens in the present. Originally from the lagoon city, Bonomi met national favour by exhibiting in Rome in 1883 with Costumi del 1700; the exhibition experience was then repeated in 1887 at the Venetian national exhibition with Abbazia, Cattiverie di guerra and San Marco.