Pictures to a story. Notes on Vita di San Filippo Neri at the Civic Museum of Bassano del Grappa

Abstract

During the eighteenth century the venetian publishing knows a flowering season thanks to the involvement of great artists in the field of illustration. Pietro Antonio Novelli was one of the most prolific inventors of decorations for illustrated books. He sketched the illustrations of Vita di San Filippo Neri engraved by Innocente Alessandri and printed in Venice in 1793. At the Museum of Bassano del Grappa we can find a special watercolored edition: sixty large prints that tell, as if they were history paintings, the life of the saint.