DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68745#0046
TINTORETTO
condition must have been amply large enough. Ridolfi says
the studio was ‘in the most remote part of the house,’ and a
long garret at the top is now pointed out and dignified by the
name of Tintoretto’s studio, but it is not very probable that
Tintoretto spent all his time and received visitors in this unceiled
apartment, hot in summer and cold in winter; the studio is more
likely to have been on the second floor, with a north aspect, and
to have made part of the building now destroyed.
The contract of its purchase by Marco dei Vescovi on his son-
in-law’s account is still extant, and is dated June 8, 1574. There
also exists a memorandum of a return made of Tintoretto’s pro-
perty for the purposes of taxation. In this the rent of the house
is put at twenty ducats, subject to a deduction on account of a
mortgage to the amount of five hundred ducats, bearing interest
at six per cent., forming part of the purchase money. Rent in
Italy is invariably fixed by the month. A ducat was about ten
shillings of our money, and having regard to the increase in the
value of money, this would bring the rent to a considerable sum,
and points to the probability that, according to the very usual
custom in Italy, the family took a larger house than they required
and let off the lower floors.
It is interesting to reconstruct the scenes in the little palace
at the foot of Ponte dei Mori. Ridolfi speaks of Tintoretto’s
life as a sober, staid, and dignified one. He held aloof from all
roistering, and was no frequent visitor in the gay and frivolous society
of Venice, but with all those young people growing up, there was
plenty of fun and pleasure and genial intercourse. Music was a
favourite diversion: Marietta, who was fourteen when they went
to the house, was highly gifted as a musician, and her father
delighted in playing on the lute, and invented improvements in
various instruments, ‘ never ’ as Ridolfi remarks, ‘ doing anything
like other people.’ Zanetti, writing in the eighteenth century, says
‘he lived very personably, surrounded by his family and friends.’
Among these friends were Marietta’s music-master, Giulio
Zacchino, a Neapolitan, and Giuseppe Zarlino of Chioggia, who
from 1565 to 1590 was the distinguished chapel-master of St.
Mark’s and one of the fathers of modern music. Jacopo da
Ponte, the landscape-painter from Bassano, was a good friend and
20
condition must have been amply large enough. Ridolfi says
the studio was ‘in the most remote part of the house,’ and a
long garret at the top is now pointed out and dignified by the
name of Tintoretto’s studio, but it is not very probable that
Tintoretto spent all his time and received visitors in this unceiled
apartment, hot in summer and cold in winter; the studio is more
likely to have been on the second floor, with a north aspect, and
to have made part of the building now destroyed.
The contract of its purchase by Marco dei Vescovi on his son-
in-law’s account is still extant, and is dated June 8, 1574. There
also exists a memorandum of a return made of Tintoretto’s pro-
perty for the purposes of taxation. In this the rent of the house
is put at twenty ducats, subject to a deduction on account of a
mortgage to the amount of five hundred ducats, bearing interest
at six per cent., forming part of the purchase money. Rent in
Italy is invariably fixed by the month. A ducat was about ten
shillings of our money, and having regard to the increase in the
value of money, this would bring the rent to a considerable sum,
and points to the probability that, according to the very usual
custom in Italy, the family took a larger house than they required
and let off the lower floors.
It is interesting to reconstruct the scenes in the little palace
at the foot of Ponte dei Mori. Ridolfi speaks of Tintoretto’s
life as a sober, staid, and dignified one. He held aloof from all
roistering, and was no frequent visitor in the gay and frivolous society
of Venice, but with all those young people growing up, there was
plenty of fun and pleasure and genial intercourse. Music was a
favourite diversion: Marietta, who was fourteen when they went
to the house, was highly gifted as a musician, and her father
delighted in playing on the lute, and invented improvements in
various instruments, ‘ never ’ as Ridolfi remarks, ‘ doing anything
like other people.’ Zanetti, writing in the eighteenth century, says
‘he lived very personably, surrounded by his family and friends.’
Among these friends were Marietta’s music-master, Giulio
Zacchino, a Neapolitan, and Giuseppe Zarlino of Chioggia, who
from 1565 to 1590 was the distinguished chapel-master of St.
Mark’s and one of the fathers of modern music. Jacopo da
Ponte, the landscape-painter from Bassano, was a good friend and
20