Royal Conservatoire of Scotland Period styles course Monteverdi’s Venice, the development of opera, and Baroque

Even as early as the Renaissance, Venice was a tourist destination Carpaccio’s paintings deliberately set out to get over this character

The Venetian Republic was a trading centre with strong links to the middle east and to trades in various luxury goods such as silk textiles, spices and other exotic products. Venetian plotting, derailing the last and fourth Crusade, led to the Sack of Constantinople in the early 13 th century, and many artworks from that city found their way to Venice at that time. Venice was indebted to the colourful polychrome styles of Byzantine art such as mosaics. After the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453, Venice retained her trading links with the Muslim regime, and Venice strengthened its hold over Middle eastern trade. In the Renaissance Venice remained artistically apart from the rest of Italy. So, although famous painters such as Bellini, Titian, Veronese or Tintoretto depicted classical subjects from myth, their handling was different from the strongly plastic (i.e. tonal, three-dimensional) treatment of other Italian painters; instead they developed colour and atmosphere through their exploration of oil paint. Venice also had an exceptionally strong musical culture, producing both church and secular music. Famous composers include Monteverdi and Vivaldi. The first public opera house was opened in Venice in Monteverdi wrote one of the earliest operas that was performed in public, L’Orfeo (1607), and his last opera I’Incoronazione di Poppea (1642) is still performed today. Both Monteverdi and Vivaldi also wrote music for those unique Venetian ‘conservatoires’ the Ospedali, the foundling hospitals that trained young women as singers and musicians.

BAROQUE San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane Façade by Francesco Boromini

BAROQUE San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane Façade by Francesco Boromini

St Peter’s Square, Rome Laid out by Gian Lorenzo Bernini ca

OVID: Metamorphoses Apollo and Daphne Bernini

Versailles ( ) by Louis Le Vau and others

Versailles, garden design by le Notre Begun in 1685

Hall of Mirrors (originally with solid silver furniture)

Chapel Royal

The Banqueting Hall, London by Inigo Jones ,Ceiling by Rubens St Paul’s Cathedral, Christopher Wren Castle Howard and Blenheim Palace, John Vanbrugh

The ‘East Indies and Australia’ 1675

Baroque, ‘world style’ Church of the Holy Spirit, Goa 1661

Altarpiece of the Virgin of Sorrows c Central Mexico

The Dutch Republic also became one of the wealthiest trade nations in the world in the seventeenth century with holdings in the Dutch East Indies, for example in Indonesia, Surinam Because of the Dutch detailed approach to painting, and the popularity of painting as a purchasable commodity in the Republic, with a concentration on domestic scenes and natural objects, these paintings are a great resource for period styles

Baroque splendour, opera, and the mechanics of spectacle

Drottningholm Royal theatre, Sweden, now world heritage site There’s a recreation of this interior and the period theatre workings in Ingmar Bergman’s film version of Mozart’s Magic Flute 1975

Handel wrote Italian opera for a London audience, with celebrity castrati singers and an aristocratic following of fans and sponsors. His subjects were taken from classical myth and history, such as Xerxes (shown here), Julius Caesar, or Alcina to name a few from many more

Blackpool Tower Ballroom by Frank Matcham