Jacopo De' Barbari's View of Venice (ca. 1500): A Digital Exhibition Catalog

FAIN: FA-252373-17

Kristin Huffman
Duke University (Durham, NC 27705-4677)

Completion of a digital exhibition catalog on Jacopo De Barbari's View of Venice (c. 1500).

A Portrait of Venice is an online digital exhibition catalogue that features Jacopo De’ Barbari’s View of Venice, ca. 1500. Even though scholars across a range of disciplines consistently use the print as an historical document, no publication has considered the View as a visual narrative for engaging with the life of a city and its connections to the Early Modern world, and no catalogue publication has yet permitted readers/viewers to explore content thematically in a non-linear format that includes interactive entries as “works of art.” This digital publication includes not only video and imagery with scholarly essays written by art and architectural historians, but also interactive 3D models, mapping timelines, annotated digital books, image comparison tools, and augmented realities. The catalogue will enable users to navigate historical material according to unique interests and needs, resulting in many access points, countless different reading pathways, and exploratory learning.

Associated Products

A Portrait of Venice: Jacopo de’ Barbari’s View of 1500 (Web Resource)
Title: A Portrait of Venice: Jacopo de’ Barbari’s View of 1500
Author: Kristin Huffman
Abstract: The Nasher Museum presented a multi-media exhibition that brought to life the city of Venice through Jacopo de’ Barbari’s iconic View. Printed in 1500, this mural-sized woodcut portrays a bird’s eye view of the city that was instantly recognized as a technological and artistic masterpiece, a portrait of an urban marvel. No other city view rivaled its grandeur, ambition, or detail. With staggering precision, the View of Venice visually describes the dense fabric of the city—thousands of buildings, hundreds of bridges, and a complex network of islands, canals, narrow streets, squares, and wellheads. The original print was on loan from the Minneapolis Institute of Art for this exhibition. For the first time, this exhibition animated the View of Venice with interactive displays that told stories of one of the wealthiest, most powerful and greatly admired cities in the early modern world. Touchscreens revealed the production of this extraordinary print as well as the historical and social themes that emerge from the image: the celebrated uniqueness of Venice, detailed city views, women and men, the state, religious life, collections and lost treasures. An augmented reality highlights the stunning continuities and remarkable transformations to the city in the more than 500 years following the View’s publication in Venice. This exhibition was curated by Kristin L. Huffman, Instructor of Art History in Duke University’s Department of Art, Art History & Visual Studies. The project, part of the Visualizing Venice initiative, is the result of multi-disciplinary and collaborative research developed over three years in the Wired! Lab at Duke.
Year: 2017
Primary URL: https://nasher.duke.edu/exhibitions/portrait-venice-jacopo-de-barbardis-view-1500/

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