Italian painter, a pupil of Sebastiano Mazzoni in Venice, and then of Carlo Maratta in Rome. He was again in Venice from 1687, leaving many altarpieces painted in the manner of Pietro Liberi as well as two canvases for the Doge’s Palace. His eclectic, impersonal production, characterized by affected, pearl-suffused colours and the influence of Antonio Balestra, helped to popularise the Roman academic style in Venice.
The monumental altarpiece is one of the artists’s most important works. Here the divine miracle is blended with the joy of the actual birth.
The groups of figures comprising The Apotheosis of Venice are surrounded by a pile of Virtues and good-natured deities. The present picture shows the personification of Abundance. The courtly assembly also includes personifications of the arts and sciences.
The groups of figures comprising The Apotheosis of Venice are surrounded by a pile of Virtues and good-natured deities, including a Mercury who skips about, winking with amusement. They sit comfortably on soft clouds, from which the smiling face of a dolphin emerges - heraldic symbol of the family. On its back rides a sensual Amphitrite, wife of Neptune.
Complex allegories abound on the ceiling. They appear painted in monochrome against a golden field, in medallions that crown the faux wall cornices and doors. The picture shows Nobility and the personifications of two rivers.
The groups of figures comprising The Apotheosis of Venice are surrounded by a pile of Virtues and good-natured deities, including a Mercury who skips about, winking with amusement.
Complex allegories abound on the ceiling. They appear painted in monochrome against a golden field, in medallions that crown the faux wall cornices and doors. The picture shows Nobility and the personifications of two rivers.
Bambini, a favourite with the Venetian aristocracy, executed this commission for the Pesaro family, glorifying both the Republic and the family through clear visual allusions to the 16th-century paintings in the Palazzo Ducale. The theme is spelled out in the Latin inscription near the bottom of the composition: “ferro aeque sceptroque potens” (powerful equally through sword and sceptre).
On the initiative of Leonardo Pesaro, the image of Venus triumphant made its appearance in a private residence for the first time, emerging from the official context of the Palazzo Ducale.
On the initiative of Leonardo Pesaro, the image of Venus triumphant made its appearance in a private residence for the first time, emerging from the official context of the Doge’s Palace.
This fresco on the ceiling of the salone in Ca’ Dolfin was executed by Bambini with the collaboration of the quadratura painter Antonio Felice Ferrari. A false loggia in rose marble augments the height of the room, opening it onto an expanse of sky. Arrayed among the clouds is an allegory of Venice between personifications of Virtues and the gods of Olympus, including Amphitrite riding a gigantic dolphin, an allusion to the Dolfin family.
This fresco is the most Baroque creation in the field of monumental decoration in early eighteenth-century Venice.
This fresco on the ceiling of the salone in Ca’ Dolfin was executed by Bambini with the collaboration of the quadratura painter Antonio Felice Ferrari. A false loggia in rose marble augments the height of the room, opening it onto an expanse of sky. Arrayed among the clouds is an allegory of Venice between personifications of Virtues and the gods of Olympus, including Amphitrite riding a gigantic dolphin, an allusion to the Dolfin family.
This fresco is the most Baroque creation in the field of monumental decoration in early eighteenth-century Venice.
The palace, now owned by the Università Ca’ Foscari, was acquired by the old, noble Venetian Dolfin family in 1621. After a succession of projects to expand and modernize it, in 1710 the building finally achieved magnificence through a new restoration, designed by Domenico Rossi. The commissioner of the renovation was Daniele III Dolfin. The decoration of the main hall (salone) was executed by Nicolò Bambini with the collaboration of the quadratura painter Antonio Felice Ferrari.
The decoration contains an elaborate, multiform iconographic program on the vault. It celebrates the virtues of the Dolfin family that distinguished itself at the end of the seventeenth century, in politics, military and the world of letters.
