Titel van de Festa della Sensa (derde en vierde gedeelte)

About this artwork

Processie van de doge op Hemelvaartsdag over het San Marcoplein te Venetië. De processie leidt naar de Bucintoro, de galei van de doge. Eens per jaar 'huwde' de doge tijdens het Festa della Sensa op ceremoniële wijze met de Adriatische Zee door vanaf deze galei een ring in het water te werpen.

Art Historical Context

This print by Jost Amman captures a key moment from Venice’s annual Festa della Sensa, the Ascension Day ceremony in which the Doge symbolically married the Adriatic. The scene shows the grand procession crossing San Marco Square, leading toward the Bucintoro, the ornate state galley from which the Doge would cast a ring into the water. Created in 1697 on paper and measuring 283 by 375 millimeters, the work forms the third and fourth parts of a larger series documenting the festival’s rituals. Amman’s detailed rendering preserves the spectacle and civic pride of late-seventeenth-century Venice. The composition guides the viewer’s eye from the crowded square to the waiting vessel, underscoring the event’s blend of religious observance, political display, and maritime power. As a work on paper, it would have circulated widely, allowing viewers far from the lagoon to witness one of the Republic’s most distinctive traditions. Today the print offers a vivid window into Venetian ceremony and the enduring idea of the sea as both lifeline and partner to the city.

About the Artist

Jost Amman · 1539–1591

Jost Amman (1539–1591) was a Swiss-born woodcut designer, engraver, and illustrator who became one of the most prolific and influential graphic artists of sixteenth-century Germany, producing an output of extraordinary range and technical virtuosity that shaped the visual culture of the later Reformation era. Born in Zurich, Amman moved to Nuremberg around 1560, the city that had been the center o...