Regatta Boats

Among the most spectacular ceremonies of Venice there are certainly races organized by the Venetian Republic in honor of principles and reigned visiting the city.

The most important artists of the eighteenth century lent their work to realize the extravagant boats with exotic names of bissone, malgarote, peote. Specialists in the field were Andrea Urbani or family Mauro, but also the great masters such as Giambattista Tiepolo, Francesco Guardi, Giambattista Piranesi and lesser-known Diziani Gaspar and Francesco Zugno.

In these works, free from functional constraints, the imagination of the artists emanated in fanciful inventions with ornamental motifs, mythological scenes and allegorical figures. Boats were designed to last the space of a ceremony, today only documented by preparatory drawings or prints that hand down from the magnificent decorations.

One of the most important collections of prints and drawings specifically dedicated to this aspect of the ephemeral Venetian Baroque is kept in the Cabinet of Drawings and Prints of the Correr Museum, and is now exposed, after a long time, at Ca' Rezzonico.

Vai alla guida d'arte di Venice