No. 2. Ducal Palace, from Canal, from Magnificentiores Selectioresque Urbis Venetiarum Prospectus,

Venice: 1741

Before his untimely death at age thirty-two, the Venetian landscape painter Marieschi was Canaletto’s principal rival. This etching belongs to a bound set of twenty-one spectacular wide-angle views of Venice published in 1741. Here several landmarks are included in a lively panorama of the waterfront near the Basilica of San Marco and its Piazzetta. From left to right, Marieschi has portrayed the sixteenth-century library, with the campanile (bell tower) rising above it, the columns of Saints Theodore and Mark, the Doge’s Palace with the Basilica behind, the prisons, and the Gothic Palazzo Dandolo (now the Hotel Danieli). The elaborate dedicatory inscription occupies a portion of the water, which is largely taken up by a range of vessels, including a moored ceremonial barge and smaller gondolas and commercial boats ferrying passengers and merchandise.