# View of Venice

**Jacopo de' Barbari** (Italian, c. 1460/70–c. 1516)  
1500  
woodcut from six blocks on six sheets of paper  
Overall: 132.7 x 277.5 cm (52 1/4 x 109 1/4 in.)

Courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art, 1949.565. [The museum's record](https://clevelandart.org/art/1949.565).

## About this work

By the end of the 1400s, Venice had emerged as the major printing center in Europe, where books were printed in various languages to be shipped around the world. The city also became the great emporium for prints, and the woodcut developed beyond its humble origins as a popular art for devotional imagery, playing cards, and later for book illustration. View of Venice epitomizes this new ambitious scope for the woodcut, and is a landmark in the history of printmaking. This monumental print can be compared in scale only to a mural decoration and presumably served as a less expensive surrogate for paintings. The six sheets that make up the design would have been pasted either onto a canvas or the wall itself, resulting in the survival of only 12 impressions of the original edition like this one, and only three in America. The goal of the print was to depict Venice as seen from above. No single vantage point would have been sufficient, so Jacopo de' Barbari and a team of surveyors climbed various towers and tall buildings to record small sections of the city. These individual views were combined to form the map which follows a single, though inconsistent, system of perspective. Unprecedented for its exactness of detail and difficulty of execution, View of Venice represents the first attempt to render the image of a city according to the laws of geometry. The view also highlights the seafaring trade activities of Venice, depicting Mercury, god of commerce, presiding over the city, while Neptune, god of the seas, keeps watch over the entrance to the city's Grand Canal.

_Text from the Cleveland Museum of Art._

Jacopo de' Barbari made this in 1500, aged 45. It is now at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

### How it was made

- **Woodcut.** A relief print. The block is cut away around the lines, so the lines stand up to take the ink, and the sheet is pressed onto them.

### [Jacopo de' Barbari](https://www.ochreeditions.com/artists/jacopo-de-barbari)

Italian, c. 1460/70–c. 1516

## Facts

- Type: Print
- Culture: Italy, early 16th Century
- The artist was 45
- Real size: about 52 × 109 in (133 × 278 cm). The original is larger than our largest print, 18 × 24 in, so every print is a reduction.
- Century: 15th century
- Movement: [Renaissance](https://www.ochreeditions.com/movements/renaissance)
- Colour: grey
- Rights: public domain (CC0 1.0); free to use for any purpose.

## Get it

- Free download, full resolution: https://img.ochreeditions.com/m/587.jpg?dl=1
- Image: https://img.ochreeditions.com/a/587/1920.jpg
- Giclée reproduction on Hahnemühle Photo Rag: 8 × 10 in $28; 11 × 14 in $38; 12 × 16 in $42; 16 × 20 in $56; 18 × 24 in $68
- Framed reproduction: 8 × 10 in $78; 11 × 14 in $98; 12 × 16 in $108; 16 × 20 in $138; 18 × 24 in $164
- Canvas reproduction: 8 × 10 in $58; 11 × 14 in $72; 12 × 16 in $79; 16 × 20 in $98
- Print-ready file: 8 × 10 in $2; 11 × 14 in $2; 12 × 16 in $3; 16 × 20 in $3; 18 × 24 in $3

Sizes stop where the museum's file would print below 150 pixels per inch. Everything sold is a reproduction, made to order. [Order a print](https://www.ochreeditions.com/art/view-of-venice-cma-127250).