Book Description

From 5th September until 1st March 2020 the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia, in conjunction with the City of Antwerp, VisitFlanders and the Flemish Community, presents 'From Titian to Rubens. Masterpieces from Antwerp and other Flemish Collections', an exhibition curated by Ben Van Beneden, director of Rubenshuis in Antwerp. The Doge's apartments will be transformed into veritable 'constkamers', rooms filled with exquisite art demonstrating the riches of Flemish collections. Featuring artists including Titian, Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony van Dyck and Michiel Sweerts, the exhibition offers an array of works. Three icons of Venetian painting return to their hometown of Venice: Titian's Jacopo Pesaro presenting Saint Peter to Pope Alexander VI, the altarpiece of the former San Geminiano church, covered by the press worldwide as David Bowie's Tintoretto', and Titian's Portrait of a Lady and her Daughter (thought to be a depiction of Titian's mistress Milia and their daughter Emilia). A special section of the exhibition will be devoted to Flemish composer Adriaan Willaert who settled permanently in 'la Serenissima' to become Maestro di Cappella of the Basilica di San Marco in 1527. It was Willaert who founded the Venetian School of music that was to instruct, among others, Giovanni Gabrieli and Claudio Monteverdi.