DOI article:
Kilian, Joanna: Locus amoenus, Delightful Place: the courtly return to nature in sixteenth century Northern Italian painting
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18947#0037
Venetians had left their past, the graves of their ancestors, and often their
property there. A broad expanse of fertile land was the dream of the Venetian
patricians.
The Cortigiano or Gentiluomo could carry out courtly rituals, games and
noble duties to the fullest only on solid ground, which madę hunting parties,
tournaments and promenades possible. For the sailors and merchants of
Venice solid ground was a nostalgie idyll, a dream - place of safety and rest,
the land of their forebears, a blessed paradise which they imagmed in biblical
and mythological terms. It was locus amoenns. Locus signifies not only a place but
also possibility, mood, endurance. Locus amoenus was a delightful, exquisite
place fuli of joy and charm, but at the same time a blessed State. In Mediterranean
culture this dream place of happiness and peace was always connected with
the world of naturę, with elear skies, gentle breezes, the greenery of plant life,
and the harmony of naturę, which Yirgil had described in the Aeniad:
“[...] they took their way / Where long extended plains of pleasure lay: / The
yerdant fields with those of heav’n may vie, / With ether vested, and a purple
sky; / The blissful seats of happy soulks below. /”16 17 18
The power of this longing for solid ground, for a locus amoenus, found
expression in the fondness of Venetians for villas and the gardens surroundmg
them. The Italian expression cwilta delle uille uenete (the culture of Venetian
villas) refers to a group of social, economic, literary, and artistic phenomena.
A new literary genre was born and grew together with the spread of Venetian
territory on terraferma, elaborations on the theme of villa life. In 1495 Piero
Crescentio’s 13th century treatise Opus ruralium commodorum was printed
and became an enormous publishing success. Later authors such as Alvise
Cornaro, Agostino Galio, and Anton Francesco Dom1 no longer published
practical treatises, but philosophical, humanist, and literary works addressing
uilleggiatura. The villa was for them a social and aesthetic phenomenon. The
architectural origin of the villa, as a building constructed with a practical
purpose, as a farm and centre of agricultural property, was almost forgotten.
The owners of these country properties were the Venetian aristocrats, who
Angelo Beolco, known as Ruzzante, an aristocrat, author and actor, referred
to as the “Societa dei Beati” (the Society of the Blessed)) s in one of his dramas
16 Virgil’s Aeneid. Translated by John Dryden, New York 1909, Book VI, p. 233.
17 Alvise Cornaro e il suo tempo, ed. by L. Puppi, Padua 1980; Agostino Galio, Le Dieci Giornate
della vera agricoltura e piaceri della uilla, Brescia 1550; Anton Francesco Doni,Attavanta, Florence
1857 (editio princeps: Le ville del Doni, Bologna 1565; manuscript from ca. 1555 is preserved
in the Correr Library in Venice, Ms. 1423); cf. M. Szafrańska, Ogród renesansowy, Warsaw 1998,
pp.170-174, pp.232-248.
18 II Ruzzante, Dialogo facetissimo et ridiculosissimo di Ruzzante. Recitato a fosson alla caccia
l’anno della carestia 1528, Venice 1554, p. 22; cf. G. Barbieri, “La Societa dei Beati”, in Andrea
Palladio e la cultura veneta del Rinascimento, Romę 1983, pp. 19-25; the tradition of theatrical
performances in Venetian villas during the Cinąuecento is discussed by, among others, L. Zorzi,
“Ruzzante ad Asolo: aristocratici e popolo” in La Letteratura, la reppresentazione, la musica...
op. cit., pp. 197-204; L. Puppi, “II Melodramma nel Giardino”, in Venezia e il melodramma
nel ‘600, ed. by M. T. Muraro, Florence 1976, pp. 327-341.
31
property there. A broad expanse of fertile land was the dream of the Venetian
patricians.
The Cortigiano or Gentiluomo could carry out courtly rituals, games and
noble duties to the fullest only on solid ground, which madę hunting parties,
tournaments and promenades possible. For the sailors and merchants of
Venice solid ground was a nostalgie idyll, a dream - place of safety and rest,
the land of their forebears, a blessed paradise which they imagmed in biblical
and mythological terms. It was locus amoenns. Locus signifies not only a place but
also possibility, mood, endurance. Locus amoenus was a delightful, exquisite
place fuli of joy and charm, but at the same time a blessed State. In Mediterranean
culture this dream place of happiness and peace was always connected with
the world of naturę, with elear skies, gentle breezes, the greenery of plant life,
and the harmony of naturę, which Yirgil had described in the Aeniad:
“[...] they took their way / Where long extended plains of pleasure lay: / The
yerdant fields with those of heav’n may vie, / With ether vested, and a purple
sky; / The blissful seats of happy soulks below. /”16 17 18
The power of this longing for solid ground, for a locus amoenus, found
expression in the fondness of Venetians for villas and the gardens surroundmg
them. The Italian expression cwilta delle uille uenete (the culture of Venetian
villas) refers to a group of social, economic, literary, and artistic phenomena.
A new literary genre was born and grew together with the spread of Venetian
territory on terraferma, elaborations on the theme of villa life. In 1495 Piero
Crescentio’s 13th century treatise Opus ruralium commodorum was printed
and became an enormous publishing success. Later authors such as Alvise
Cornaro, Agostino Galio, and Anton Francesco Dom1 no longer published
practical treatises, but philosophical, humanist, and literary works addressing
uilleggiatura. The villa was for them a social and aesthetic phenomenon. The
architectural origin of the villa, as a building constructed with a practical
purpose, as a farm and centre of agricultural property, was almost forgotten.
The owners of these country properties were the Venetian aristocrats, who
Angelo Beolco, known as Ruzzante, an aristocrat, author and actor, referred
to as the “Societa dei Beati” (the Society of the Blessed)) s in one of his dramas
16 Virgil’s Aeneid. Translated by John Dryden, New York 1909, Book VI, p. 233.
17 Alvise Cornaro e il suo tempo, ed. by L. Puppi, Padua 1980; Agostino Galio, Le Dieci Giornate
della vera agricoltura e piaceri della uilla, Brescia 1550; Anton Francesco Doni,Attavanta, Florence
1857 (editio princeps: Le ville del Doni, Bologna 1565; manuscript from ca. 1555 is preserved
in the Correr Library in Venice, Ms. 1423); cf. M. Szafrańska, Ogród renesansowy, Warsaw 1998,
pp.170-174, pp.232-248.
18 II Ruzzante, Dialogo facetissimo et ridiculosissimo di Ruzzante. Recitato a fosson alla caccia
l’anno della carestia 1528, Venice 1554, p. 22; cf. G. Barbieri, “La Societa dei Beati”, in Andrea
Palladio e la cultura veneta del Rinascimento, Romę 1983, pp. 19-25; the tradition of theatrical
performances in Venetian villas during the Cinąuecento is discussed by, among others, L. Zorzi,
“Ruzzante ad Asolo: aristocratici e popolo” in La Letteratura, la reppresentazione, la musica...
op. cit., pp. 197-204; L. Puppi, “II Melodramma nel Giardino”, in Venezia e il melodramma
nel ‘600, ed. by M. T. Muraro, Florence 1976, pp. 327-341.
31