Resumen de A sea of marble: the sculpted topographic views on the façade of Santa Maria del Giglio in Venice
Drawing from a tradition of self-glorification among monuments dedicated to the memory of Venetian admirals, the late-Seicento façade of Santa Maria del Giglio in Venice contains no religious imagery whatsoever, instead serving to commemorate and elevate the lineage and attributes of its patron, Antonio Barbaro (1627–1678). Among the façade’s most unusual elements are six topographical views (of Zadar, Candia, Padua, Rome, the port of Corfu, and Split) sculpted at the base. These bird’s-eye reliefs show the sites of the greatest successes of Barbaro’s military and political career, from naval commander in the Mediterranean to podestà of Padua to ambassador in Rome. Among the incredibly rare instances of sculpted views created in early modern Europe, they serve as a consultable index of the personal history of Barbaro and stand iconographically alongside imagery extolling the lineage and virtues of the patron. This contribution considers how these views, particularly the water-based views of Venice’s Mediterranean ports, functioned as tokens both of the self-glorification of Venetian nobility and of La Serenissima’s continued self-definition through its control of the sea
