VISENTINI Antonio

(Venice 1688 – 1782)

Venetian engraver, architect and painter Visentini began his artistic career as a pupil of Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini, the predecessor painter of Tiepolo who was active first in Venice and then in England.
The fame of the Visentini, however, is mainly due to his studies as an architect and his work as an engraver.
As an exponent of architectural classicism, he was one of the founders of the Academy of Fine Arts, where he taught perspective and published architectural treatises.
He designed the Palazzo Smith (1751, then Mangilli-Valmarana), one of the most beautiful on the Grand Canal and the facade of Palazzo Giusti (1766). Under the guidance of Gian Domenico Tiepolo he collaborated on the realization of the frescoes of Villa Valmarana near Vicenza. He redesigned the facade of Palazzo Balbi, home of the British Consul Joseph Smith, for whom he worked often.
In 1726 he began to engrave with the technique of etching. He firstly performed the series “Iconography of the Ducal Basilica of the Evangelist San Marco” and then the famous views of Venice taken from paintings by Canaletto. At the initiative of the British Consul Joseph Smith, Visentini developed an intense relationship of collaboration with the painter Antonio Canal.
A part of the collection of views of Canaletto engraved by Visentini and entitled “Prospectus Magni Canalis Venetiarum” consisting of fourteen views was first published in 1735 by the publisher Giambattista Pasquali, while the final series expanded to thirty-eight plates was published in 1742 .
The collaboration between Canaletto and Visentini was very close, as testified by the rich frontispiece of the views of Venice in which the portraits of the two artists appear together.
This series of prints was very popular and was published several times during the 18th and 19th centuries, making popular the fascinating image of the lagoon city in most of the European countries.
Works of the Visentini were also the refined vignettes of invention for volumes “Della Istoria d’Italia” by Francesco Guicciardini published between 1738 and 1739. In 1746 he executed for the consul Smith, in collaboration with the painter Francesco Zuccarelli, also 12 ornamental panels, exhibited today in Windsor Castle.
Antonio died in misery in Venice, at the age of ninety-four.