The Tombs of the Doges of Venice. (Reviews).

Debra Pincus, The Tombs of the Doges of Venice 

Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. xviii + 126 illus. + 257 pp. $80. ISBN: 0-521-59354-9.

Debra Pincus' book examines a group of ducal tombs from the Dugento and Trecento. Opening with a chapter on "The Office of Doge and the Civic Tomb," six chapters offer close readings of individual monuments, punctuated by a middle chapter, "Who Rules Christ's Realm?"; an epilogue on later ducal tombs closes the book.

Pincus' principal concern is to chart the relations between art and politics in reference to the image of the doge, and while considerable attention is given to stylistic issues, the book concentrates on iconography. Placing these tombs in their historical context, she considers them "a set of documents" that express Venetian political ideas "in the quintessentially Venetian form of a visual statement" (3).

She posits that these tombs make specific political messages. The following gives a much simplified account of Pincus' argument. The ducal tomb as civic monument begins sometime after 1250 with that of Jacopo Tiepolo (1229-49) originally in front, but now on the facade, of SS. Giovanni e Paolo. In accordance with the imperial title assumed by doges after the conquest of Constantinople in 1204 -- "Doge of Venice...and Lord of a quarter and a half of the Roman empire" -- Tiepolo's sarcophagus presents him as the "ruler of Romania" by employing imperial Byzantine motifs. Pincus finds diverse sources and meanings for other motifs on the tomb and interprets the use of different styles as a deliberate effort to extend references "beyond Byzantium to other parts of the late medieval world" (28). An essential part of Pincus' hermeneutics is that diverse styles are systematically manipulated for iconographic ends.

The tomb of Marino Morosini (1249-53) emphasizes the civic role of the doge as opposed to the "imperial" emphasis of the Tiepolo tomb. Its location in the vestibule of S. Marco inaugurates "a new phase of heightened ducality" (36) that reflects the increased civic importance of the ducal church. The first half of the book concludes with the tomb of Ranieri Zeno at 55. Giovanni e Paolo: drawing on the principle of "amalgamation" observed in Tiepolo's tomb, Zeno's tomb employs "different image types" to synthesize the messages of both the Tiepolo and Morosini tombs to present the doge as both ruler of the civitas as well as "a quasidivine ruler triumphant" (66).

After a temporary eclipse attributed principally to internal conflicts caused by the Serrara, the ducal tomb as civic monument revives with that of Giovanni Soranzo (1312-28) in the baptistery of S. Marco. Calling it the "first instance in the West of ruler burial in a baptistery" (90), Pincus interprets the tomb as appropriating for the doge the imagery and prerogatives of bishops' tombs, thus presenting the doge as a religious as well as a political ruler "who serves as a conduit for divine illumination" (104).

The tomb of Francesco Dandolo (1329-39) in the chapter house of the Fran furthers the ties between Doge and God. The fresco above the tomb shows Dandolo in a special relationship with the Christ Child; the carved tomb chest depicts the Dormition of the Virgin. In accordance with Franciscan Marian devotion, the tomb incorporates Mary into civic imagery, binding the doge not only to Christ but to His Mother as well.

The book concludes with the tombs of Bartolomeo Gradenigo (1339-42) in the vestibule, and that of Andrea Dandolo (1343-54) in the baptistery of S. Marco. Both feature the Annunciation on their frontals, including Mary in Venetian state imagery and thereby "grounding" Venice in Christian history. Pincus suggests that Dandolo planned both monuments as an attempt to make S. Marco "a ducal mausoleum."

But, as her epilogue notes, Dandolo was the last doge buried in S. Marco and SS. Giovanni e Paolo became the preferred site for ever more elaborate ducal tombs. Pincus sees this positively, as extending ducal presence beyond S. Marco, with SS. Giovanni e Paolo providing a site where doges and nobles "could intersect with monumental visibility" (149) not possible at S. Marco. One could equally well interpret this development, however, as the patriciate's victory to fashion the doge not as ruler but as primus inter pares.

The most problematic aspect of the book is that of agency. Who planned and commissioned these complex monuments? The doges? Their heirs? Did the planning process change over time? Pincus' rich and multi-layered book, nonetheless, makes a fundamental contribution to Venetian art and history by giving these tombs the critical attention they deserve and by placing them in their Venetian and European context. It is an important addition to the study of ruler iconography.