Venice in Blue: An Online Exhibition by the University of St Andrews
Hello again! We are back and excited to get started with a new round of blog posts!
Today we want to draw attention to Venice in Blue, a wonderful online conference and exhibition recently organized by the School of Art History at the University of St Andrews and entirely devoted to works on blue paper. As our readers and clients know, works on blue paper are a special interest of PrPh: beautiful and intriguing, they also represent an important development in the history of the book, offering a more affordable alternative to vellum that could still make for a precious volume.
This is why the second instalmant of our Italian Books series was devoted entirely to works on blue paper produced from the sixteenth to the mid-nineteenth century. As the catalogue suggests, blue paper became especially popular in Venice, due to its unique position at the center of a large commercial network as well as a thriving dye industry. Indeed, it was Aldus Manutius who issued the first book ever printed on blue paper, the agricultural collection known as the Libri de re rustica (1514).
Throughout our ongoing celebration of Venice’s 1600th anniversary, we have also had the occasion of highlighting several of these special blue-paper works in the context of La Serenissima’s cultural history, including Giolito's 1546 quarto edition of Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, Le vite de’ Dodici Cesari di Gajo Svetonio Tranquillo, the Italian translation of Suetonius’ De vitae XII. Caesarum, published in Venice in 1738, Girolamo Zanetti’s Chronicon Venetum, of 1765, and Gasparo Gozzi’s Favole Esopiane, published in 1809.
The exhibition and conference organized by the School of Art History at the University of St Andrews is a great complement to our recent activity and an important contribution to scholarship in general, since it focuses especially on drawing and printing on blue paper in Venice in the first half of the sixteenth century. To this end, the online exhibition brings together drawings, prints, and books, considered under the four themes of The Human Form, Antiquity, Mythology, and Creating Space and Composing Action. Within these categories, a range of works are presented to show how blue paper’s special ability to enhance the tonal range of compositions is uniquely used to suit the material and imagery at hand.
Serlio, Sebastiano (1475-1554). Il terzo libro... Venice, Francesco Marcolini, February 1540 (bound with:) Idem. Regole generali di architettura... Venice, Francesco Marcolini, February 1540.
A few books are also presented in the exhibition, including a blue-paper copy of Serlio’s Regole generali di architettura, a work that was also included in our Italian Books II catalogue: under the theme of Creating Space and Composing Action, Ruby Dunn points out how the blue paper is well suited for the treatises’s architectural theme since the subtle gradations of tone it allows means that page and form can beautifully work together to create the impression of space.
Explore the exhibition here.
The conference was held on 2-3 September 2021, but abstracts of the presentations can be found here.
Venice in Blue Online Exhibition. Edited by Alexa McCarthy. University of St Andrews, 2021. https://veniceinblue2021.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/.
More blue books to explore
![[Blue paper] Calderia, Giovanni (1395-1474). Concordantiae Poetarum Philosophorum & Theologorum... Venice, Giuseppe Comino da Trino, 1547.](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c748f03aadd346d92d68bd1/1561571253591-8XQBR204JJ1UGQZ55M4F/image-asset.jpeg)
![[Claudianus, Claudius ca. 370-404] Sanuto, Livio (ca. 1520-1576). ...La rapina di Proserpina di Liuio. Venice, [Gabriele Giolito de’ Ferrari ?], 1551. (Copy)](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c748f03aadd346d92d68bd1/1561759127199-FMTKHEZ1H1CTWD2C8842/claudianus+2.jpg)
[Claudianus, Claudius ca. 370-404] Sanuto, Livio (ca. 1520-1576).
Al reuerendissimo et illustrissimo signor il cardinal di Trento La rapina di Proserpina di Liuio.
Venice, [Gabriele Giolito de’ Ferrari ?], 1551.
![[Blue paper] Davidico, Lorenzo (1513-1574). Columba animae...Milan, Vincenzo Girardoni, 1562.](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c748f03aadd346d92d68bd1/1561759560085-VUSMHYL3BTNRBDESH9VG/Davidico+.jpg)
![[Blue paper] Boccaccio, Giovanni (1313-1375). La Theseide... Innamoramento piaceuole... Lucca, Vincenzo Busdraghi for Giulio Guidoboni, 1579.](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c748f03aadd346d92d68bd1/1562101129742-TG9VZUV92R88NLWORG5B/Blue+Boccaccio+1.jpg)
Boccaccio, Giovanni (1313-1375).
La Theseide... Innamoramento piaceuole, & honesto di due Giouani Thebani Arcita & Palemone; D’ottaua Rima nuouamente ridotta In Prosa per Nicolao Granucci di Lucca. Aggiuntoui un breve Dialogo nel principio e fine dell’Opera diliteuole, & vario.
Lucca, Vincenzo Busdraghi for Giulio Guidoboni, 1579.
Tacitus, Caius Cornelius (ca. 55 – ca. 120).
Opere... con la traduzione in Volgar Fiorentino del Signor Bernardo Davanzati Posta rincontro al Testo Latino. Con le Postille del medesimo e la Dichiarazione d’alcune voci meno intese... Novella Edizione, purgata dagl’innumerabili errori di tutte le precedenti....
Padua, Giuseppe Comino; Giovanni Antonio Volpi and Gaetano Volpi, 30 August 1755.
![Papafava dei Carraresi, Giovanni Roberto (1735-after 1793). Dissertazione. Est aliquid prodire tenus. [Padua, 1771].](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c748f03aadd346d92d68bd1/1589582279298-FTU1UP57WM6OAJXUSTY0/Papafava+comp+lr.jpg)
![[blue paper] Pulci, Luigi (1432-1484). Tractato del Prete cole Monache. Paris, Tipografia Crapelet, 1840.](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c748f03aadd346d92d68bd1/1586897344652-TPIU379VS6FAO20BWLCT/Pulci%2Bblue%2B2.jpg)