(Venice 1715–1757)
The campo Santi Giovanni e Paolo, Venice,
oil on canvas, 99.5 x 120 cm, framed

Literature:
D. Succi, Il fiore di Venezia. Dipinti dal Seicento all’Ottocento in collezioni private, 2014, pp. 182-183, no. 155

The name of this master derived from a set of thirteen vedute kept at the eponymous Langmatt Foundation in Baden, Switzerland (see Mythos Venedig. Venezianische Veduten des 18. Jahrhunderts, exhibition catalogue, Museum Langmatt, Baden 1994, pp. 62-117). The hypothesis that Apollonio Domenichini could be the painter of this large body of finely executed and distinctive vedute, which had collectively been attributed to the Langmatt Master, was debated by scholars of Venetian painting. However, it was only with the discovery of a lost inscription on the reverse of an original canvas, hidden under the lining of a painting, that it was possible to definitively identify Domenichini as the painter of the Langmatt views.

Domenichini´s name is recorded in the Fraglia (guild) of painters of Venice in 1757 (Favaro 1975, p. 158). Although details of his life are relatively scarce, scholars have started to construct a fuller picture through his paintings and various archival sources. Recently, having established the Venetian artist’s date of birth in 1715, Lino Moretti (see L. Moretti, Di Apollonio Facchinetti detto Domenichini (1715-1757) e altri pittori di quella famiglia, in: Arte Veneta, 68, pp. 319-323) also stated that his real surname was Facchinetti. He gleaned this information from the fact that in a document dated August 6, 1702, his father, also a painter, was named as “Domenico Facchinetti detto Domenichini”; we may therefore deduce that Domenichini was the nickname used for the members of the Facchinetti family who were artists. Lino Moretti’s study of Apollonio Facchinetti’s biographical details is particularly important for the reconstruction of the cataloguing of his works, which can now be dated to a precise period of time.

Domenichini may have been a pupil of Luca Carlevarijs (1663–1730), and seems to have been independently active from around 1740. The homogenous group at the Langmatt Foundation has been dated to circa 1744 on the basis of architectural details. Domenichini’s work has been linked by Succi to the work of Michele Marieschi (1710–1743) and Francesco Albotto (1721–1757), although in general his work seems to have more in common with the Canaletto-like works of Francesco Tironi (1745–1797).

In this view of the Campo dei Santi Giovanni e Paolo in the Castello district, the façade of the Scuola Grande di San Marco stands out in the centre. Destroyed by fire in 1485, the Scuola was rebuilt under the direction of Pietro Lombardo between 1487 and 1490. The work was finished around 1495 by Mauro Codussi, also responsible for the splendid decorative elements and internal stairway. Since 1815, subsequent to the suppression of the Scuola, the building has been used as the city’s hospital.

On the right, the equestrian monument to Bartolomeo Colleoni stands out against the side of the church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo. The construction of the church lasted almost two centuries, from the middle of the 13th century to 1430. The church is considered to be Venice’s ‘Pantheon’, due to the numerous funeral monuments of doges and illustrious figures it contains. Its imposing facade, shown here in shadow, balances the composition, closed off to the left by the buildings overlooking the Rio dei Mendicanti. The campo itself is animated by numerous figures wearing brightly coloured clothes, which give a sense of depth to the perspective view.

Apollonio Domenichini was the most fruitful painter in Venice during the whole of the 18th century: Many views of Venice, of the riviera del Brenta, Rome, as well as numerous imaginary landscapes and architectural capriccios with classical ruins are attributed to him and to his workshop.