Diana Gisolfi, Director

If we count 2020 and 2021, the years when we were not on site, but did maintain our existence (via faculty videos, a Zoom symposium of student alumni research, interviews with alumnae, and our newsletter)—

Again, if we count these years, the 2023 program was our 39th year of Pratt in Venice.

Twenty-five participants, including our four faculty, our on-site assistant, and 19 students, both undergraduate and graduate, participated.

In addition, we enjoyed lectures from many local experts and visiting American scholars. The biggest presence, however, is always Venice herself, built in the sea on marshy islands and landfill between the fifth and eighteenth centuries. From a distance, across the water or from the air she appears a mirage, low buildings a reddish shade of bricks and tiles, with tall, thin vertical elements, reaching skyward, the belltowers.

Up close, the vision is glitter, gold, shimmering water, a symphony of color, a constantly-calling beauty. Walk through the Istrian stone doorframe of any church, pace the checkered floor of Verona red limestone and Istrian white limestone, contemplate the lapis lazuli of the tabernacle, the altarpiece by Bellini, or Titian.

On the day after arrival, we all do just that together, and we provide “Chorus passes” which invite students to similarily enter twenty churches, of equal beauty and treasure. For some of the many visual riches displaced after the fall of the Republic in 1797, we visit the Accademia: painting cycles from repurposed scuole (lay charitable institutions) and altarpieces from closed churches fill the rooms.

Our first painting class at Università Internazionale dell’Arte on the Giudecca Island, looking toward the lagoon, is preceded by lunch of tramezzini at the local “bar” which students will frequent throughout, purchasing many pannini and cappucini and espressi over the six weeks of the program. Earlier we had taken the vaporetto to the San Marcuola stop to introduce the Scuola Grafica where printmaking takes place.

The first official art history on-site class consists of visiting the island of Torcello, where the architectural remains from the efforts of the earliest Venetians are found, while the first Materials/Techniques class takes place in our UIA library room to introduce our own collection of relevant texts, and next to the richer Cini Foundation Library in the Palladian Abbey of San Giorgio Maggiore.

Our group of students in 2023 was enthusiastically participatory, ready with questions and comments, collaborative, humorous, and almost always on time! Some novelties were the Solstice picnic organized by Jill Brandwein, on-site assistant, the night drawing session and exhibition organized by Fay Ku, the visit to the huge Palazzo Pisani to see 17th-century stucco and fresco conservation that Save Venice arranged for Diana’s students, the many large canvases produced in Michael’s class. Our traditional trips happened: the day in Ravenna, led by Joe Kopta, the Padua visit for all aided by architetto Antonio Stevan, the Veneto day with Castelfranco, Emo, Maser, Bassano (preceded by Paolo Spezzani’s lectures on non-destructive analysis of paintngs). As many students had visited the Peggy Gugenheim Museum already, our last group visit was voted to be the Ca’ Pesaro with its collection of modern art, especially Italian – featuring such artists as Mario Sironi, Giorgio Morandi, and Medardo Rosso.

Presentations by art history/materials students on the final Friday explored stone, mosaics, ships (galleys), gilded bronze, woodcuts, processional standards. The final crit revealed strong results in oil, watercolor, journal sketches, motion notypes, collagraphs, drypoint – promising a wonderful exhibition on Campus in October.