The New York Public Library Explores Romance, Sex, and Desire in New Exhibition

FEBRUARY 10, 2017 - In partnership with Carnegie Hall’s celebration of music from the Venetian Republic, The New York Public Library will examine the literary, artistic, musical, and cultural aspects of Venice’s seductiveness in its own exhibition. Opening at the Library’s iconic Stephen A. Schwarzman Building on Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street on February 10, Love in Venice will be on view until August 29  in the Library’s Wachenheim Gallery.

A tolerant and secular state, the Venetian Republic originated in the lagoon communities around Venice and existed for half a millennium, from 1297 until 1797. Dominated by a merchant capitalist elite, the Republic of Venice enjoyed an autonomy that was not typical of the rest of Italy—making it a destination for love and pleasure. Focusing on subjects such as courtesans, lavish festivals, beauty rituals, lively carnivals, and the libertine counterculture, Love in Venice features a diverse body of works, with highlights including:

• The Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, one of the most iconic works produced in the Venetian Republic, exploring themes of desire. Rarely on view, there will be two versions: one on vellum and another on paper. The comparison of the books allows the viewer to see one of its most sensual images, the Sacrifice to Priapus, in both its censored and uncensored states. The image features the god of fertility with his alert and priapic member, in front of a group of adoring women—a feature that was often obliterated by later owners, as is the case in the Library’s copy on paper.

• Two late sixteenth-century flap books printed in Venice; one showing a woman and her chaperone on a gondola. However, once the flap is raised a scene of two lovers in embrace is revealed. Another book shows a courtesan being admired by a Venetian senator - that woman's skirt can be raised to show her underwear and staggeringly high platform shoes.

• “Mad, bad and dangerous to know” is how one of his lovers once described Lord Byron, an Anglo-Scottish poet and leading figure of the Romantic movement. When infidelity caused him to leave England—and his wife—one of his first stops was Venice. The letter on display was  penned by one of his Venetian mistresses, whose identity remains unknown. Frustrated at not being Byron’s only lover, she reacts to his romantic exploits with jealousy and anger.

• A volume commemorating the celebrations held in honor of Ferdinando de’ Medici, Grand Prince of Tuscany, when he visited Venice in 1688 and was greeted by a procession of marine floats depicting classical gods. The frontispiece shows Neptune introducing a nude Venus to a female embodiment of Venice, drawing a clear association between the two women.

• Vendetta of Love, a sixteenth-century pulp fiction novel, that includes a crude woodcut on its frontispiece showing a woman stabbing herself with a dagger. Anonymously written, it offers several analogous love stories bound into a cheap format. Its title was shared by an Italian soap opera, pointing to the subject’s common lineage in popular melodrama.

• Woman Reclining in a Landscape, a rare stipple engraving by Giulio Campagnola, that relates to the great Sleeping Venus (1510) by the Venetian Renaissance master Giorgione and exemplifies a type that is unique to Venice. The woman in each composition lies asleep on her side, but Giorgione’s faces outward toward the viewer, while Campagnola’s turns away so that we see her from behind. Regardless of her position, each woman is oblivious to the viewer, affording an opportunity for unalloyed voyeurism.

"As leisure travel grew more fashionable among wealthy Europeans in the sixteenth century, Venice catered increasingly to tourists with a taste for art, music, literature, and dance, as well as those in thrall to the spell of love,” said Madeleine Viljoen, Curator of Prints and the Spencer Collection. “Venice’s unique desirability would continue long after the decline of the republic in the late eighteenth century and its eventual incorporation into a unified Italy."

In conjunction with the exhibition, The New York Public Library will also present a series of free public programs held at the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building on Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street.

Love in Venice Public Programs

Monday, February 13, 6:30 p.m.

Casanova: Seduction and Genius in Venice

To recount the unparalleled history of sex and intrigue that is the life of Giacomo Casanova, biographer Laurence Bergreen will be joined by author and psychosexual therapist Dr. Ruth Westheimer, who has said, “To all those who seem to think sex was invented in their lifetime, I suggest they take a look back in time and see if they can’t learn a thing or two from a true master.” They will speak with Emily Witt, author of Future Sex, which was named one of Slate Book Review Best Books of the Year for 2016.

Friday, February 24, 6:30 p.m.

The Library After Hours

The Library After Hours joins the Venetian celebration on February 24 from 6:30-9:00 PM. As part of a new free, monthly, event series, the Library will have specialty cocktails, Italian snacks, guided curator tours of the Love in Venice exhibition, music and dance lessons, mask-making, and short Venetian films from the Library's archives.

This exhibition has been made possible by the continuing generosity of Miriam and Ira D. Wallach.

Support for The New York Public Library’s Exhibitions Program has been provided by Celeste Bartos, Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III, Mahnaz Ispahani Bartos and Adam Bartos Exhibitions Fund, and Jonathan Altman.

Contact: Sara Beth Joren | sarabethjoren@nypl.org

About The New York Public Library

The New York Public Library is a free provider of education and information for the people of New York and beyond. With 92 locations—including research and branch libraries—throughout the Bronx, Manhattan, and Staten Island, the Library offers free materials, computer access, classes, exhibitions, programming and more to everyone from toddlers to scholars, and has seen record numbers of attendance and circulation in recent years. The New York Public Library serves more than 18 million patrons who come through its doors annually and millions more around the globe who use its resources at www.nypl.org. To offer this wide array of free programming, The New York Public Library relies on both public and private funding. Learn more about how to support the Library at nypl.org/support.