Barbari, Venice, 1500
Virtually nothing is known about the early life of Jacopo
de’ Barbari. He may have been born as early as 1450 or as late as 1470,
probably in Venice but possibly in Nuremburg. He may have studied under the
Italian painter Alvise Vivarini, or maybe not. The first thing we know for
certain is that he met Albrecht Dürer during Dürer’s Wanderjahre in
1495.
Not much more is known about Anton Kolb. He was a merchant
from Nuremburg who ended up in Venice as a member of the Fondaco dei Tedeschi (Guild
of German Merchants), where, according to later records, he was trying to sell
Latin copies of Schedel’s Weltchronik.
Sometime around 1497 Kolb approached Barbari with a proposal to prepare a large-scale bird’s-eye view of Venice. The result – the Venetie M.D. or Pianta di Venezia or Plan of Venice – simply had no precedent in the history of cartography or printmaking. It was also, somewhat suprisingly, Barbari’s first attributed work.
Sometime around 1497 Kolb approached Barbari with a proposal to prepare a large-scale bird’s-eye view of Venice. The result – the Venetie M.D. or Pianta di Venezia or Plan of Venice – simply had no precedent in the history of cartography or printmaking. It was also, somewhat suprisingly, Barbari’s first attributed work.
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