Miti greci a San Marco: i rilievi dei sottarchi della Libreria Sansoviniana a Venezia

The Marciana Library, erected in front of the Doge’s Palace from 1537 by Jacopo Sansovino, represents, together with the adjoining Loggetta, the Tuscan artist’s first major public commission in Venice. It displays a highly complex and innovative pictorial and sculptural figurative program that has no precedents in the history of Renaissance architecture in the Serenissima. The figurative cycle, whose author remains unknown, presents a history of the cosmos and humanity in a pagan key, read through myth. The main sources are the Metamorphoses and other works by Ovid, but also various sources, including probably the Periegesis by Pausanias. The reliefs of the figurative arches dedicated to Phanes, Jupiter, Venus, Minerva, and Apollo are taken into consideration. The succession of the arch themes shows a surprising semantic correspondence with the image narrative of the capitals of the portico of the Doge’s Palace.