To enrich our educational path – in collaboration with the Amici di Thiene Group and the Venetian Civic Museums Foundation – we have available for observation and study a reproduction in original dimensions of the famous:

   …better known as the “Bird’s eye view of Venice” by Jacopo de ’Barbari, dated 1500, whose original pear wood matrices are one of the precious treasures preserved at the Correr Museum in Venice.

   The view is a woodcut engraved on six pear wood panels, whose matrices are still preserved in a glass case at the Museo Correr in Venice. It measures approximately 134.5 x 282 cm. Currently more than twenty copies have been received which document at least three different main states of the woodcut, recognizable in particular by the different configuration of the bell tower of San Marco.

   Our reproduction is a copy of the map present at the Correr Museum in Venice belonging to the first and original state of the 16th century, recognizable by the Campanile di San Marco with the roof without the cusp, as it appears today.

VENETIE MD – Bird’s eye view of Jacopo de Barbari

Detail of the map, the Campanile di San Marco

Detail of the map,
Jacopo de’Barbari, possible self-portrait
within the View

Detail of the view of Venice,
Mercury holding the caduceus,
signature of the works of Jacopo de ’Barbari

The plea letter
by Anton Kolb

commissioner of the View of Venice

Serenissimo principo et exma Signoria,
Antonio Cholb merchadante todescho supplica ala Sta vra:
cum sit che lui principalmente ad fama de questa exa cita de Venetia quella habia facto justa et propriamente retrare e stampare la qual opera hora de poy lotempo di tre anni fornita: et perche esse in molte cose ale altre opere se fano asei extracto: si per la materia dificilissima et Incredibele poterne far desegno si per la grandeza sua et de la carta che mai simele non fu facta, si anchora per noua arte de stampar forme di tal grandeza sua et dela carta che mai simele non fu facta, si anchora per noua arte de stampar forme di tal grandeza: et per la dificulta de le copositio tute in seme, le qual cosse non essendo per suo valor stimate da la zente: nela sutilezadel Intellect le forme stampando possano suplir che per mancho de cercha a tre fiorini una opera se posse revedere per tanto universalmente non spiera rechauarne le messa faculta, supplica adoncha ala subta vra che In gra li sia conceduto che dicta opera senza datio et senza Impedimento In tutti i luoghi et da tutte le terre vre portar trar et vender possa.

Supplica di Anton Kolb, tedesco, alla Serenissima
per stampare e vendere la Veduta di Venezia di Jacopo de Barbari.
Archivio di Stato di Venezia, 30 ottobre 1500

The original specimens
still existing

First Edition

1. Hamburg, Kunsthalle
2. Berlin, Staatliche Museen, Kupferstichkabinett
3. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts
4. Cleveland, Museum of Art
5. London, British Museum
6. Nuremberg, Germanisches National Museum
7. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale
8. Venezia, Museo Correr
9. Venezia, Museo Correr
10. Venezia, Museo Correr
11. Venezia, Fondazione Querini Stampalia

Second Edition

1. Amsterdam, Rijksprentenkabinet
2. Austin, University of Texas
3. London, British Museum
4. Los Angeles, University of California, Grunwald Graphic Art Foundation
5. Venezia, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana
6. Venezia, Museo Correr
7. Vienna, Nationalbibliothek
8. Washington, National Gallery, The Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection

Third Edition

1. Florence, collezione De Marinis
2. Vienna, Nationalbibliothek
3. Venezia, collezione Novacco Collection (the collection was acquired by the Newberry Library in Chicago)