Marina Nani Donà Hereditas

Marina Nani Donà Hereditas  – Paintings from her Collection

14th December 2023 – 24th March 2024

Palazzo Contarini del Bovolo opens its exhibition rooms to a part of the paintings from the Collection donated by the noblewoman Marina Nani Donà (1711-1790) to the Pio Loco delle Penitenti di San Giobbe, an institute founded in 1700 by the patriarch Giovanni Badoer intended to welcome young prostitutes eager to emancipate themselves.

In the inventory of the Collection drawn up by the Napoleonic intendent Pietro Edwards in 1790, requested by the administrators of the Institute, 97 canvases are listed, painted by the great masters of the Venetian sixteenth century, including Titian, Tintoretto and Bassano, as well as by artists of more recent times but of equal skill, such as Antonio Molinari and Sebastiano Ricci.

Between 1791 and 1792 Marina Nani Donà Collection suffered an unfortunate fate of dispersion; however, the inventories of the Collection drawn up first by the painter Bernardo Concolo, then by the above-mentioned Pietro Edwards, allow us to affirm with certainty the desire of the Nani family to create an art collection that was able of presenting the vitality of the Venetian artistic panorama between sixteenth and eighteenth centuries.

Only 28 paintings of Marina Nani Donà’s considerable heritage have been saved, some of which are now exposed in the exhibition. The visitor is therefore invited to juggle between sacred and profane themes and to enjoy the splendid canvases painted by some of the best artists who have contributed to fueling the myth of Venice as urbs picta, civitas artium.