There are diplomatic operations in which defeats are passed off as victories, there are changing unions and unstable balances. In Venice, in the last decade of the 15th century, the situation is uncertain and alert. There is an urgent need to give an outward image of unity, of untamed internal cohesion and security. The first and unescapable aim of the governmental èlites, busy at encouraging a “rescue attitude”, is to nourish the Serenissima myth, involving all the city’s productive forces. An enourmously aimed-at propagandistic campaign is detailedly planned, and refined diplomatic schemes are disclosed. Visual communication strategies are fundamental in this operation, regardless of the expenses. It is necessary to strenghten the city’s image through the narration of painted stories, able to express triumphant deeds in accordance with the chronicles. After getting to Venice, the French diplomat Philippe de Commynes cannot help saying: “it is the most triumphant city I have ever seen”. The city on the lagoon is a glittering device designed with the purpose of drawing people’s attention; it is a deathly device, entirely visual. The best witness-painters are recruited in order to make the illustrated equivalent of the chronicles tellers; a great documentaristic – celebrative responsibility is given to painted stories.

At the end of the fifteenth century this tough decorative campaign takes up, between other painters, also the young painter Vittore Carpaccio. There are just a few reliable historical data about his biography, his date of birth is unknown and theme of discussion of many distinguished art history scholars. Ludwig-Molmenti seems to make it on Frey and Pignatti, placing it between 1465 and 1467. “Carpaccio, painter of stories” is an exhibition open until the 13th of March at the Academy Galleries. There are works lent by the Galleria Franchetti, Ca’ d’Oro, given from the Accademia Carrara di Bergamo, the Louvre and the Staatsgalerie in Stuttgart, that give back in the original sequence some of the “missing” narrative cycles, such as the Stories of the Virgin’s life and the four paintings representing the life of Saint Stephen.

Carpaccio breaks into the Venetian painting scene at the age of twentyfive, overcoming all his predecessors. In the monograph written in 1967 by Michelangelo Munaro, an heterodox art historian originary of the Veneto region, Carpaccio is defined as a character susceptible to the ideals of a secular civilization. To the altarpieces and mosaics he prefers tapestry, miniatures, joyful Teleri (monumental paintings), thus presenting himself as a painter with a “modern man’s prophane attitude”. In his paintings, he adheres to the stylistic elegance of the flowery Gothic, but his compositions are not static at all, as those of Lazzaro Bastiani or Mansueti are. They are amazing, full of fire and of fits of inventiveness. The rigid orders he is given to represent precise religious events become in his work mere excuses to give shape and rythm to extremely lively scenes of city life. His dense group portraits catch oblique glances between different factions, and their geometric compactness shows a certain inquietude.

He is given his first order in 1494; it consists of eight narrative scenes, which represent the most ancient cycle of painted stories. They represent, following the Legenda Aurea by Jacopo da Varagine, the contemplative and painful story of Orsola, virtuous daughter of the profoundly Christian king of Brittany. Sanudo, in his “Cronachetta”, little chronicle, updated to 1530, puts it under the “noticeable” things to see in Venice. It is a series that, with an enchanting and floating rythm, tells about the deadly parable of Saint Orsola, up to her calvary in the Holy Land, surrounded by her puellae, ladies. Choreographies are theatrical and imaginative, there are lots of really learned architectonical quotations, some of which are fantastic, while others are taken from books’pictures more than from travels done in first person. And then there are decorations, tarsias, the highly refined taste for details, the elaborated cut of clothes, the detailed make-up of ceremonials: all of them are sign of sophisticated and initiation humanistic knowledge. In the choral scenes, it is possible to spot faces and figures of the Venice of the time, coming out of the many people crowding round the protagonists; there are members of the clients’family, exponents of the various Scuole and Brotherhoods, and the precise profile of some humanist friend. In the intimist scenes, the expanded and unspeakable moment of Orsola’s dream radiates a gentle grace: Orsola is very composed, asleep in the neatness of her bed, her hand is brought to the ear as to watch over imperceptible signs; on the threshold, the angel is dancing in silence. The room, bare and quiet, is full of premonition.