Venetian Air and the Avatars of Disegno in Sixteenth-Century Art Theory

When praising cities in the early modern era it was typical to comment upon the advantages of their particular siting, especially when it resulted in mild temperatures and good air quality. This presentation examines ways in which early modern art theorists, Giorgio Vasari in particular, used these environmental tropes to support their outlook on Venetian art, bolstering their broader critical frameworks.

Lorenzo Buonanno is Assistant Professor in the Art and Art History Department at the University of Massachusetts Boston. He specializes in the art of early modern Venice. His studies on Venetian sculpture have appeared in volumes such as Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari. Immagini di devozione, spazi della fede, edited by Carlo Corsato and Deborah Howard, and The Art of Sculpture in Fifteenth-Century Italy, edited by Amy Bloch and Daniel Zolli, and his first book, The Performance of Sculpture in Renaissance Venice, was published in March 2022.