Parade on the Piazza di San Marco

During a visit to Venice, the heirs to the Russian throne – Pavel Petrovich and his wife Sophie von Württemberg – were treated on 24 January 1782 to a singularly remarkable performance: a bull fight on St Mark’s Square, which had been specially converted into an amphitheatre. The piazza was enclosed by temporary festival architecture, such as the triumphal arch seen in the right of the picture, and even the entire palace to the left. The programme of accompanying events included a procession comprising allegorical figures, which enacted a ‘Triumph of Peace’ by means of a variety of constructions and figures. Guardi immortalized this theatrical display in two drawings and two paintings, elongating the perspective by some margin, and depicting events from the southern longitudinal side of the square (in reality, much narrower than is suggested by the drawing). His art, which draws both from real views of Venice and capriccio-style visualizations, heralded the modern manner of perceiving and depicting the famous city on the lagoon.