The Piazza della Signoria in Florence

Venetian Settecento painting is characterised by the diversity of the clients' requirements and the consequent diversity of artistic genres. Altarpieces, palace decorations, representative portraits, Rococo landscapes and satirical genre pictures were executed for various purposes and often initiated by different ideas. The townscape is a typically 18th century and typically, if not exclusively, Venetian art form; its most outstanding exponents were Antonio Canale and his nephew, Bernardo Bellotto. Three paintings by the latter can be found in the museum. The two Florentine vedutas, forming a pair, are youthful works. The appeal of the view of the Piazza della Signoria, painted around 1745-50, lies not only in the skillful use of the perspective and the topographical accuracy but also in the capture of the sunlit atmosphere and the evocative staffage.