Love in Venice

Love in Venice

This exhibition is part of Carnegie Hall’s citywide festival
La Serenissima: Music and Arts from the Venetian Republic

Open now
Ends August 26th, 2017

Stephen A. Schwarzman Building

 

A tolerant and secular state, the Venetian Republic originated in the lagoon communities around Venice and existed for half a millennium, from 1297 until 1797. 

 

Lovers and Chaperone Meeting on the Venetian Canal - Giacomo Mantegazza

Dominated by a merchant capitalist elite who did business through sea trade, the Republic of Venice enjoyed an autonomy and freedom that was not typical of the rest of Italy, and which for centuries made it a destination for love and pleasure.

Titled “Love in Venice,” the exhibition at The New York Public Library will examine the literary, artistic, musical and cultural aspects of Venice’s seductiveness, including its beautiful courtesans, lavish festivals, lively carnivals and libertine counter-culture. 

 

Casanova at dinner.
Watercolor by Auguste Leroux (1871-1954)
from the 1932 French edition of Casanova’s Histoire de ma Vie

On view will be works as diverse as the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, one of the most iconic works produced in Venice to explore ideas of desire, to flap books showing the undergarments of Venetian prostitutes, etchings by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, letters from Lord Byron’s paramours and examples of wedding poetry celebrating the unions of leading European families.

Braille and large-type versions of the information in the gallery are available at the info desk in Astor Hall.

https://www.nypl.org/events/exhibitions/love-venice