Anna Ezernitskaya
Russian State University for the Humanities, Russia
The problem of the Compagnie della Calza is mostly considered in the context of the Venetian public ceremonies and private feasts in the 15th–16th centuries.
This topic has never been studied in Russian historiography. Also we should mention that there is hardly any research in the literature on the Compagnie della Calza in the Venetian paintings of 15th–16th centuries. Our report aims to fill in the gap.
As for today the most fundamental research covering practically all the aspects of Comapgnie della Calza’s activities is the work of Lionello Venturi. The author gave most proper definition of the character of this unions as “a private society temporarily created by the noblest young men who have decided to unite their forces for the purpose of entertainment”.
The illustrative witnesses of how exactly Companions looked “at their full blossom” could be divided into three groups:
1. Drawings, prints and engravings made with documentary preciseness showing some coat of arms, stripes and tabs or even sometimes a concrete person who belonged to a certain Compagnia della Calza;
2. Paintings of the Venetian Renaissance artists who according to Venturi strived for depicting the reality with pedantic punctuality: “Procession in Piazza San Marco” by Gentile Bellini (1496), “The arrival of the English Ambassadors” by Vittore Carpaccio (1495–1500), and others;
3. Compagnie della Calza are also met in the works of artists where the subject line is either hidden or is absent at all. For instance the male character of Giorgione’s “La Tempesta” is dressed in the hoses of different colours. Or in the Dzanetti’s engraving based on Titian’s fresco and later coloured by Grevembrock we see a personage in different hoses too. In the “Pastoral Concert” whose attribution to Giorgione or Titian is still disputable we see that the man who holds an instrument in his hands is also dressed in striped hoses. The stripes are clearly seen as the light falls on his knee.
The research of the phenomenon of Compagnie della Calza in the social life of the Republic of Venice in the15th–16th centuries opens to the historians of art a remarkable opportunity to find additional, sometimes hidden subjects and senses in the well-known programme of works of art.