Fonti e immagini della religione veneziana tra il Quattrocento e il primo Cinquecento

The system of Venetian Renaissance piety was the result of a delicate balance between civic religion, republican and ducal ceremonies, lay brotherhoods (mostly controlled by the state, like the Scuole Grandi), particular cults and aristocratic devotions. Retrieving the classical studies about Venetian state and christian symbols in rituals and in painting (Sinding Larsen, Muir, Goffen, Brown, Crouzet-Pavan), and pointing to some recent contributions about the patronage of altarpieces in the second half of Quattrocento, this paper throws new light on a well-known decree issued by the Council of Ten (june 1462) that ordered a traditional procession of the four Scuole Grandi in honour of St. Caterina and forbade the spontaneous and complex representations set up by the friars in S. Giovanni e Paolo. Some final considerations concern the change in structure and meaning of the civic processions in the years of the Italian wars and during the clash between Venice and the Pope in 1509-1511.