Sacrifice as a normative act: the funerary monument to Caterino Cornaro in Padua

• Autores: Stefano Colombo
• Localización: Artibus et historiae: an art anthology, ISSN 0391-9064, Nº. 87, 2023, págs. 131-158
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • This essay develops a new interpretative framework for the funerary monument to Captain Caterino Cornaro (1674) as part of Venice’s celebratory imagery. Devised by Baldassare Longhena in the Basilica of Saint Anthony of Padua, the monument commemorates Caterino Cornaro, the captain of the Venetian fleet who died in the Cretan War in 1669. The paper argues that the Cornaro monument epitomizes the notions of sacrifice and service to the state as they were delineated in seventeenth-century Venetian historiography, political thought, and panegyric literature. It first provides a novel architectural and iconographic analysis of the monument in relation to Longhena’s previous works and Baroque funerary monuments. Second, the reading of panegyric literature discussing the notions of sacrifice and service to the state provides a theoretical framework for the monument’s contextualization. Finally, comparative analysis of the Cornaro monument and hitherto understudied eulogies in praise of Caterino demonstrates how words and images complemented each other and prompted their audiences to ponder over Caterino’s death, thus rekindling their devotion to Caterino and the Venetian republic