The arts in Istria

The Giorgio Cini Foundation Institute of Art History – with a contribution from and in collaboration with the Veneto Region – has organised a seminar on The arts in Istria. The aim of the seminar is to survey research and recent discoveries in the field of Veneto art in Istria together with some leading Croatian and Slovenian scholars.
Venetian art still found in Venice provides an overall image of Istria, going beyond its languages and borders. Over the centuries the Serenissima was a constant cultural reference point for all Istrian artistic forms. Young artists came to Venice to learn the craft in the most celebrated workshops. First polyptychs and then altarpieces were shipped from Venice for convents and churches in the Istrian cities. Painters like Vittore Carpaccio and, later “minor” artists like Stefano Celesti or Giuseppe Camerata chose to settle on the other side of the Adriatic, partly because the market was less competitive. Even after the fall of the Venetian Republic, more or less well-off parish priests came to Venice to buy state-owned liturgical furnishings and baroque altars from suppressed religious buildings in the lagoon to furnish their churches.

Venice, Island of San Giorgio Maggiore
22 – 23 March 2007

Information
Institute of Art History
tel. +39 041 2710230 – fax +39 041 5205842
e-mail: arte@cini.it