Plate 5: The Doge in the Bucintoro Departing for the Porto di Lido on Ascension Day, from 'Ducal Ceremonies and Festivals' (Le Feste Ducali)

Plate 5: The Doge in the Bucintoro Departing for the Porto di Lido on Ascension Day, from 'Ducal Ceremonies and Festivals' (Le Feste Ducali)

Giovanni Battista Brustolon

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The main feature of this print is the state barge (bucintoro) that was used annually on Ascension Day to transport the doge to a ceremony that symbolically wedded Venice to the Adriatic Sea. The vessel was 120 feet long and 26 feet high. The doge’s throne was in the stern, and at the prow was a figure holding scales representing Justice. The larger print shown adjacent to this one demonstrates the opulence of the procession. In 1798 the French general Napoleon ordered the barge destroyed, a symbolic act to celebrate his conquering of Venice. This print is from a series of twelve "Ducal Ceremonies and Festivals" (Le Feste Ducali).

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Plate 5: The Doge in the Bucintoro Departing for the Porto di Lido on Ascension Day, from 'Ducal Ceremonies and Festivals' (Le Feste Ducali)Plate 5: The Doge in the Bucintoro Departing for the Porto di Lido on Ascension Day, from 'Ducal Ceremonies and Festivals' (Le Feste Ducali)Plate 5: The Doge in the Bucintoro Departing for the Porto di Lido on Ascension Day, from 'Ducal Ceremonies and Festivals' (Le Feste Ducali)Plate 5: The Doge in the Bucintoro Departing for the Porto di Lido on Ascension Day, from 'Ducal Ceremonies and Festivals' (Le Feste Ducali)Plate 5: The Doge in the Bucintoro Departing for the Porto di Lido on Ascension Day, from 'Ducal Ceremonies and Festivals' (Le Feste Ducali)

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.