On the Rialto Bridge
Today marks another important Venetian anniversary: it was on this day in 1588 that the first stone of the iconic Ponte di Rialto was laid, with construction finishing in 1591. One of the most famous landmarks of the city, the Rialto Bridge was the first permanent structure to cross the Grand Canal and indeed the only one until 1854, when the Accademia Bridge opened. Its centrality made it a defining feature of commercial activity for Venetians and foreigners alike. It follows that it also played an important role in the history of print.
A crossing existed in this area connecting San Marco and San Polo since the fifth century, when the first stone of San Giacomo di Rialto, Venice’s first church, was laid on 25 March 421. The current church dates to around 1097; this is also when the market moved to the area, beginning the long association of the Rialto with commercial activity.
Part of the appeal of the area was the narrowness of the Grand Canal at that particular point, a critical factor given that the only way to walk across at the time was over a string of boats. In 1178, Nicolò Barattieri designed a wooden pontoon bridge called the Ponte della Moneta. With ever increasing foot traffic, a stronger timber bridge with two ramps and a moveable central portion was built in 1255. Several reiterations followed as the structure had to be continuously repaired or rebuilt, for example, after being partially burned in 1310 during the revolt led by Bajamonte Tiepolo, and following a particularly dramatic collapse in 1444, during the wedding celebration of the Marquis of Ferrara. The bridge as it was around 1496 is seen in Vittore Carpaccio’s Miracle of the Relic of the True Cross.
Vittore Carpaccio, Miracle of the Relic of the Cross at the Ponte di Rialto, ca. 1496. Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice. Public domain.
As Carpaccio’s painting shows, shops were already being established on the bridge itself. In fact this practice had begun in the first half of the fifteenth century, when two rows of shops were erected on the sides of the bridge.
Given its always questionable stability and the importance of the bridge to the city, the idea of a new bridge of stone was much discussed and gained speed in 1524, following another partial collapse. Construction on a new bridge would, however, have to wait until 1588 to finally get underway.
Canaletto, The Rialto Bridge from the South, ca. 1727. The Earl of Leicester and Trustees of the Holkham Estate, CC BY-SA 4.0
Canaletto, The Rialto Bridge from the North, ca. 1726-1727. Royal Collection, UK. Public domain.
Such well-known figures as Palladio and even Michelangelo proposed plans for the new bridge, but the commission ultimately went to Antonio da Ponte (1512-1597), who was assisted by his nephew, Antonio Contino (1566-1600), the architect responsible for another of Venice’s iconic bridges, the Ponte dei Sospiri, or Bridge of Sighs. In contrast to other designs for the Rialto Bridge which proposed a multi-arched structure, da Ponte’s suggestion was for a visually simple, single arch spanning across the water, much like its wooden predecessor. This form would make it more difficult to build than a multi-arched version, but it would ultimately be cheaper and, critically, better suited for boats passing through. Moreover, the design accommodated the existence of shops to continue on the structure itself. These shops were popular, given their prime location, and part of the income they generated was put toward maintaining the bridge.
Domenico Cunego, after Jacopo Bassano, Effigies incognita (portrait of Antonio da Ponte), 1769. British Museum, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.
The significance of the bridge to the city’s economy and culture cannot be understated. Rialto and San Marco had the two main food markets and the two main schools, making the two areas, along with the Merceria in between, the main hub of commerce and trade for Venetians and foreigners alike. The bridge itself became not only part of this commercial culture, but a place to meet, gossip, and catch up on events, hence Salanio’s question, “What news on the Rialto?” in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice.
“What news on the Rialto?”
It followed that when printing came to the city in 1469, this was the area its proponents needed to go. Publishers, print dealers, engravers, and booksellers became especially prominent at the Rialto and the Piazza di San Marco and in the stretch in between. Already at the time of the 1524 collapse, diarist Marino Sanuto (1466-1536) noted the extensive damage sustained by shops on the bridge, which ended up losing a great deal of their stock to the Canal. Among these shops he noted “do cartoleri” and “do library di libri a stampa” (Marino Sanuto, I diarii di Marino Sanuto, vol. 36, Venice, 1879–1903, p. 526).
The popularity of the site only grew in the following decades. Major publishers like Gabriel Giolito, the Giunta, and the Manuzios all had shops in and around this area, as did Bernardino Bindoni, Melchiore Sessa, and the da Sabbio brothers. Others set up less permanent locations, as with Giacomo da Trino, whose stall under the portico at Rialto became a “semipermanent fixture[] of the urban landscape.” (Rosa Salzberg, “Per le Piaze & Sopra il Ponte,” in Geographies of the Book, pp. 118-119, 121)
As Rosa Salzberg’s important work on the significance of this area for the developing print culture shows, the production and selling of ephemeral publications was also deeply intertwined with other activities. “Ephemeral printed matter such as posters and decrees, and cheap, ‘popular’ pamphlets destined more exclusively for the Venetian market, made up an important element of the output of many printers.” (Rosa Salzberg, “Per le Piaze & Sopra il Ponte,” p. 111) Such light, portable works in the vernacular and with eye-catching material were often sold directly in the streets, thus more firmly embedding print culture into everyday life. With such a concentration of book and print sellers amidst the general bustle of activity, printing was impossible to ignore and quickly became part of the culture.
Israel Silvestre, Veuë du pont de Realte de Venize invente par Michel Ange, ca. 1640. Rijksmuseum, CC0 1.0.
Unfortunately, the centrality of the bridge in particular also made it a primary target when the industry began to experience control from outside. For example, in 1543, the Council of Ten affirmed an injunction that required every new text to be subjected to censorship before publication, addressing specifically all those “who sell such books and works, prognostications, and stories and songs, letters and other similar things on the Rialto bridge, and in other places of this city.” (Cited in Angela Neovo, The Book Trade in the Italian Renaissance, Boston, 2013, p. 325)
In the face of this scrutiny, the Rialto Bridge emerges, appropriately, as an emblem of unity, which helped establish the book trade as a complex and close-knit network of producers and sellers. The proximity of figures from all parts of the trade, whose production addressed a vast range of audiences, meant that the industry developed from an intimate community, with informal collaborations and partnerships, as well as competition, and a general interest in the development of the field as a whole.