The Museum of Eighteenth-Century Venice is located in Ca’ Rezzonico, a patrician palazzo on the Grand Canal. Dedicated to the most decadent century in Venetian history, its beautifully preserved eighteenth-century rooms house mainly decorative arts and furniture of that era, as well as a rather curious painting collection. The palazzo at first belonged to the Bon family, who in 1649 commissioned Baldassare Longhena, the most famous architect of the Venetian Baroque, to design their prestigious new home. Due to the death of the architect in 1682 and the financial collapse of Filippo Bon, the unfinished palazzo was sold to Giambattista Rezzonico. Originating from the homonymous village on the shore of Lake Como, the Rezzonico family purchased patents of nobility in 1687 – after making a very generous donation to the financially stricken government of the Serenissima Repubblica. The wealth of this merchant family, as well as their social advancement, found expression in the acquisition of the impressive palazzo on the Grand Canal. Among the artists involved in the magnificent furnishing and decoration of what became Ca’ Rezzonico after its completion in 1756 were Gaspare Diziano, Jacopo Guarana and most notably Giambattista Tiepolo, who adorned a number of rooms with frescoes depicting carnivalesque and idyllic genre scenes.

The lavish splendour of the palazzo’s architecture and decorations is characteristic of the decadent tendencies of eighteenth-century Venice. As Venetian citizens and nobiltà were forbidden by law to wear jewellery and clothes made of precious fabrics in public, they displayed their wealth within their homes. Paradoxically, although basically bankrupt and concerned about its citizens showing off their worldly possessions, the Serenissima Repubblica was by the eighteenth century best known for its elaborate, spectacular festivities and ceremonies, which formed the centrepiece of the state’s self-created myth. The public image of Venice was that of a decadent, hedonistic city, favourite destination of travellers from Northern Europe who were not only eager to learn about Italian culture and artistic heritage, but were also looking for entertainment and pleasure.

The Regata holds a special place in the rich Venetian festival culture, deeply intertwined as it was with Venetian identity. Originally a military drill in a state highly reliant on well-trained rowers, the boat race became one of the Republic’s most prestigious events. Giustina Renier Michiel, a nineteenth-century chronicler of her hometown’s festive past, referred to the Regata as ‘i giuochi olimpici della nostra Repubblica’ (‘the Olympic games of our Republic’), thus emphasising the uniqueness of the event and its importance for the Republic. Besides the annual official Regata grande, several privately organized rowing competitions took place each year from the fourteenth century on, mostly in the context of the entertainment programmes staged for state guests. As there was no designated residence for foreign state visitors, they found accommodation in the palazzi of government members. The patrician hosts were obliged to contribute to the official programme of diplomatic spectacle, which consisted mainly of an audience at the Doge’s palace, visiting the Arsenale, and seeing the treasury of San Marco. A Regata, while entertaining for foreign visitors and Venetians alike, also served as a demonstration of the Venetians’ competence and efficiency by staging the ephemeral with as much splendour as possible. On a Regata day, several races of different types of boat were held, from gondolas with two rowers to large rowing boats called ganzaruole or bissone with up to eight oarsmen. Yet, the showpieces and main attraction of every Regata were the extravagantly decorated boats cruising on the Grand Canal between the races. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when staging festivities was almost an everyday business for the Republic, several workshops existed in Venice that specialized in designing and constructing these highly imaginative boats. The contemporary fascination for these masterpieces of ephemeral shipbuilding is mirrored in the vast production of Regata memorabilia such as festival books, view paintings, and the widely distributed prints of the preparatory drawings.

Thirty preparatory drawings and engravings of Regata boats from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are temporarily on display in the Sala dei Arazzi (Tapestry Room) of Ca’ Rezzonico. Usually kept in the Gabinetto Stampe of the Museo Correr and accessible exclusively to researchers, the museum’s entire holdings of Regata drawings and prints have been put on view in this small exhibition, providing a rare opportunity to witness the evolution of the magnificent regatta showboats. The first Regata to be documented in visual and textual sources was one held on the occasion of the visit of Ernst August, Duke of Brunswick, on 28 June 1686. Further works show boat designs for the Regate staged in honour of Ferdinando III de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany (15 March 1688), Gustav III, King of Sweden (8 May 1784), Friedrich Eugen II, Duke of Württemberg (3 June 1767), and Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor (2 April 1791). Four designs for festive boats built in the years 1700 and 1715 for the ceremonial entries of imperial ambassadors to Venice are also on display. The prints and drawings that make up the exhibition illustrate the evolution of the Regata showboats from the high and late Baroque, through exuberant rococo flamboyance, to more sober neoclassical designs. The iconographic programmes of the boats are mostly composed of maritime mythological subjects, such as the Triumph of Neptune or Jason and the Argonauts, but allegories of war, victory and the Venetian dominance over the Adriatic were also typical subjects for the boats. The allegories or mythological characters decorating the bow or stern were either made of ephemeral materials or impersonated by actors. All of the visual records on display in the exhibition are executed with incredible detail and precision, showing not only the spectacular ornamental cladding of the boats but also matching costumes for the rowers and musicians on board.

These prints and drawings compose an exceptional documentation of Venice’s rich cultural history of festivals, and will continue to impress and fascinate viewers even today. However, as the exhibition aims to show the stylistic evolution of the regatta showpieces throughout the last two centuries of the Serenissima Repubblica, it is hard to comprehend why the works are not shown in chronological, or indeed any particular order at all. Moreover, framing the works behind reflective glass and hanging them relatively high on the wall does not seem to be the ideal form of presentation; presenting the works in display cases would have done them better justice. The prints, executed in small format and with great detail, cannot be fully appreciated, because the eighteenth-century furniture prevents visitors from stepping up close to the walls on which they hang. Inside the Tapestry Room, the informative text about the Regata prints is hardly noticeable and given only in Italian. This invites confusion from those visitors who do not read the language, as the English and French explanations refer only to the tapestries, part of the permanent collection usually shown in the room, but currently not on display to make way for the exhibition.

In early modern times, every single Regata was an event of unique splendour, with boats created to entertain and impress the guest of honour, to manifest Venice’s reputation as the Città galante, and to spread the myth of the Serenissima Repubblica. Considering this, the small one-room exhibition of prints and drawings that is Imbarcazioni da Regata is quite underwhelming. Nonetheless, this is an enjoyable exhibition for an audience interested in Venetian cultural history. As the typical visitor to the Museo del Settecento veneziano belongs precisely to such an audience and is likely to have some background interest in and knowledge of the subject anyway, the opportunity to see the rarely exhibited Regata designs will no doubt delight.

Imbarcazioni da Regata is at Ca’ Rezzonico, Venice, from 31 May to 24 November 2013.