The secrets of the time of birth and death of Canaletto are solved

He was one of the leading Italian artists of the 18th century, but so far the secret has enveloped everything related to the dates of his birth and death. It seems that there should be a lot of information about artists such as Canaletto, both in books and on the Internet. And this information, indeed, is in abundance, but different sources offer different versions, which, sometimes, are difficult for even experienced art critics to understand.

Link: Canaletto Art Gallery

To find out the exact dates of the birth and death of Canaletto, we will go on a short detective trip.

It will begin in the archives of the churches of Venice, where the registers of most births, marriages and deaths in this city are kept. Knowing where Canaletto lived - in the San Lio district in Castello - you can also find information about his birth. But if you set the year was not difficult, then with the number, everything is not so simple. One gets the feeling that while rewriting the book, each subsequent author set a new date. The only solution is to look for the source, because this is the only way to establish not only the correct date of birth, but also the reason why mistakes were made in the interpretation of this date.

And such a source was found in the library of Giorgio Cini on the island of San Giorgio in Venice and in 1962 it was published. Then it became clear why there were errors in the interpretation of the date - the handwriting of the medieval scribe looked like spider steps on the page. For a long time, the date of birth of Canaletto was considered October 28, 1697, although in fact it is October 17. In the original source, the number one is written so that it is easy to interpret it as a deuce, and the number seven is read as eight - this can be easily verified by analyzing the rest of the records of the parish priest.

Canaletto Birth Certificate, 1697. Photo: TheArtNewspaper.com

In addition to the exact date, from the original birth record, you can find out that Giovanni (Juan) Antonio Canaletto was baptized on October 30 by Mr. Polo, the son of the late Vendramin Labretti, who lived in the parish. His parents: Mr. Bernardo Canal, son of the late Cesare, artist, and Mrs. Artemisia, daughter of the merchant Carlo Barbieri.

The death certificate of the artist looks simple at first glance, but in fact there is even more confusion with him. It reads: “Canaletto died seven hours after sunset on April 19, 1768 from a fever with inflammation of the bladder, which lasted about five days. He was buried in a common grave during the Santissimo Spirito San Lio fraternity. ”Thus, the artist was supposed to be a member of the fraternity, although no records of this could be found.

Canaletto Death Certificate, 1768. Photo: TheArtNewspaper.com

The clerk made some more mistakes. From the text it follows that Canaletto is buried under the altar of Holy Communion. In any Catholic church, there is a red candle or light bulb indicating the presence of the Holy Gifts. In the church of San Lio, she is on the right side of the main altar, and Canaletto is buried there, as indicated, in a common grave. "The Brotherhood of Santissimo Spirito" - the wrong name, it simply did not exist, so the artist’s grave for a long time was not found. Actually, the city church of San Lio was meant.

The date of death is doubtful. The clerk indicates the date as April 19, the time of death is seven hours after sunset. The next entry in the book dates back to April 20, which looks logical, but further research again destroys the big picture. Here we must recall that in the XVIII century, the Venetians used the 24-hour clock, but their new day began an hour after sunset, the hour of sunset was considered the last, 24th hour. If Canaletto died 7 hours after sunset, then according to the modern calendar, it will be April 20: the sunset time is April 19 - 01/19, the new day starts at 20.01, and seven hours after sunset - 3.01 according to our usual time.

Thus, the death record reads: “Signor Antonio, [son] of Bernardo Canal, aged 71, suffering from fever and inflammation of the bladder for five days, died on April 20, 1768.”

Original article: "Solved: the mystery of Canaletto’s birth and death dates" , THE ART NEWSPAPER.

Anna Sidorova © Gallerix.ru