TIRONI, Francesco - b. ~1745 Venezia, d. 1797 Venezia - WGA

TIRONI, Francesco

(b. ~1745 Venezia, d. 1797 Venezia)

Italian painter. He specialized in painting vedute of Venice in a Neoclassical style. Contemporary sources mention Tironi exclusively as a draftsman, ignoring his activities as a painter. His oeuvre was recognized only later.

Although Francesco Tironi’s artistic activity remains somewhat uncertain, we do know that he provided the drawings for Antonio Sandi’s twenty-four engravings of islands in the Venetian Lagoon. The engravings were published in 1779, and many of the drawings are extant today.

View of Piazza San Marco, Venice
View of Piazza San Marco, Venice by

View of Piazza San Marco, Venice

View of Sant'Elena and San Nicolò di Lido on Ascension Day, Venice
View of Sant'Elena and San Nicolò di Lido on Ascension Day, Venice by

View of Sant'Elena and San Nicolò di Lido on Ascension Day, Venice

Throughout the foreground Tironi has carefully depicted a diverse variety of vessels that form the flotilla surrounding the Doge’s Bucintoro. The occasion is that of the Sposalizio del Mare, an annual celebration that takes place on Ascension Day, during which the Doge would drop a consecrated ring into the lagoon, thus symbolically wedding the Venetian Republic to the sea and confirming the maritime prowess of La Serenissima.

View of the Piazzetta from the Bacino di San Marco, Venice
View of the Piazzetta from the Bacino di San Marco, Venice by

View of the Piazzetta from the Bacino di San Marco, Venice

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