This course, led by lecturer Caroline Brooke, explores Venetian painting in relation to the unique geographical and social context of the city.

Issues considered include the ways in which:

• Poitical and religious institutions gave rise to distinct forms of patronage
• Religious painting was conditioned by its physical environment
• Pivate patronage gave rise to growth in secular art as a consequence of the development of connoisseurship in Venice during the Renaissance

Image above: Detail from Polidoro da Caravaggio, The Way to Calvary