Still life is a pictorial style characterized by a high symbolic density, which reaches Venice late, never to become a popular genere, indeed it will remain appanage of a few, “foreign” painters. At the end of the Sixteenth century the object begins to be seen separately from the whole, it is isolated, having an intrinsec liveliness of its own; enlivened by echoes and rebounds, it refers to secret notices and mysterious invitations. This genre spreads quickly: from Flanders to Holland, it spreads almost simultaneously in Spain, Lombardia, in the south of Italy; but in Venice it finds nearly indifference.

Marco Boschini boasts scarce consideration in 1660 when, referring with contemptuous tone to still lives’collectors, he says:” Che crede de condir le galarie/ Con ragni, con formigole e stampie/ e i le stima più dolce dei confeti./Un leguro, una rana, un scarpion, una mosca, un zenzal/ ha da far drento a un studio e pompa e pala/ e concorrere con Paulo e con Zorzon?”. At the Galleries of the Academy of Venice are exhibited, from 6 September to 8 January , 39 between drawings, paintings, miniatures. They have diverse origins, coming from legacies and donations, they are partly exhibited for the first time, and they focus on still life. The works have been borrowed by sedimented Venetian collections as: Molin, Contarini, Manfrin.

Hourglasses, pomegranates, measurement instruments, skulls, botanical caprices, hares and other game, greens, wine glasses, cores and varying patterns come out from dark backgrounds to produce bewildered microcosms. It strikes, isolated, the tiny Leonardo paper with metal point, pen , ink, lightly darkened paper. It is extremely elegant, made of botanical details, and gives a vegetal visual effect showing five violets, a spikelet inflorescence, (they assure it is “typical of graminaceous plants”), three buds of ranunculus. Between the Flamish tables, it is worth to notice the still life with wine glasses. Down, on the left, there is the wax seal with the Contarini family’s blazon. The ingredients’ disposal is fresh, on dishes of which it seems to feel the consistency: a glass dish with tiny scattered candies, a half cheese projecting a diagonal, a ceramic dish with almonds and dates, glittering dishes with dried figs and chestnuts, a wine glass resembling the goblets produced in Venice in the 1600 for the northern market, beside a spire-shaped goblet of Anglo-Saxon making.

It is a careful and clear exhibition, containing between other objects also seven wonderful elliptic miniatures in ivory, kept by Girolamo Contarini in his Palace at San Trovaso. They have been painted on a opaque surface and then restored with accurate sensitiveness by Rosella Bagarotto.