Paolo Barbisan: The Polyptychs and Titian

The polyptych in Venetian art represents a fascinating chapter: a traditional structure designed to endure much longer than in Florence or Tuscany, evolving in a wholly unique way.

In Murano, the workshop of Antonio, Bartolomeo, and Alvise Vivarini dominated production for decades.

The true turning point occurs with Giovanni Bellini who, while maintaining the structure of separate compartments in the Polyptych of San Vincenzo Ferrer in the Basilica of Santi Giovanni e Paolo, begins to transcend division through a single light source and a landscape horizon, and in the Frari Triptych of 1488 innovates this type, effectively surpassing it, with the introduction of unified space behind the sacred figures and the tonalism of oil technique.

Even in the height of the sixteenth century, Titian and his workshop will not shy away from producing great works of art in the form of polyptychs to cater to the taste of a patronage still rooted in a conservative preference.

The renowned polyptych commissioned to Titian by Altobello Averoldi in Brescia, one of the master's masterpieces, is just the first among others scattered across the territories of the Serenissima, including the large polyptych of the parish church of Lentiai.

PAOLO BARBISAN, art historian, is a lecturer in the History of Sacred Art and the Protection of Ecclesiastical Cultural Heritage at the Theological Study of Treviso-Vittorio Veneto, and a lecturer in the History of Art and Christianity at the ISSR Giovanni Paolo I.

He is the Director of the Office for Sacred Art and Cultural Heritage of the Diocese of Treviso and is responsible for Cultural Heritage and Worship Buildings for the Triveneto Episcopal Conference.

For information: Tel. +39 0435 501674 - centrostudi@tizianovecellio.it