The Versailles-Giverny Foundation

Between the 1650s and 1861, the Remondini family managed one of the most successful printing and publishing companies of the time. Based in Bassano, where it employed up to 1000 workers in a town of little over 8000 people, the Remondini distributed its products all over Europe and its itinerant sellers could even reach Russia, America, Asia, and Africa. Because of the company’s industrial organization, the Remondini was able to control the whole process—from papermaking to printing the woodblocks and copper plates and selling the prints. The Remondini produced books, colored, brocade and decorative papers, and ‘popular’ and ‘fine’ prints. The company owned over 1500 old copper plates that were used to reissue out-of-print images of Old Masters. It has been argued that this side of the company’s production was inspired by Remondini’s exceptional collection of Old Master prints. Indeed, over the centuries, the Remondini family was able to amass a collection of thousands of prints currently considered among the finest and most extensive of its kind in Italy.

The Remondini Collection comprises 8522 woodcuts, engravings, and etchings with comprehensive collections of works by some of the greatest designers and printmakers of the Renaissance, including Mantegna, Dürer, Titian, Agostino Carracci, Giulio Campagnola, Giacomo Franco, and Palma Giovane. The collection comprises both original prints designed by the artist on blocks or plates (stampe d’invenzione), and reproductive prints (stampe di traduzione) handmade by professional printmakers after an artist’s painted work. On both occasions, these prints played a crucial role in promoting the circulation of artistic ideas, models, and iconographies on a European scale.

The Remondini Collection originated shortly before 1770, with the collection of Italian, Flemish, French, English, and German engravings that Count Antonio Remondini had acquired from an anonymous Italian collector. Almost twenty years later, another selection of Italian and foreign prints was purchased by Giuseppe and Antonio Remondini from Don Bernardo Ziliotti, a painter and engraver who had formed his collection in Venice. The collection was further increased by Antonio’s heirs until Giovanni Battista Remondini decided to donate it to the Civic Museum of Bassano in 1849.

The current arrangement of the collection closely reflects how it came to the museum. The prints are listed alphabetically by the name of the designer – regardless of the identity of the printmaker – and by national ‘schools:’ Italian (5403 prints), German (1299 prints), Flemish and Dutch (1081 prints), British (72 prints), and French (645 prints). They are kept in 79 folders and glued individually or in groups on grey-blue backing sheets (measuring about 760 x 540 mm) that bear original inventory numbers. Most of the prints have their margins cropped and come with handwritten notes and attributions inscribed on the mounting.

Over 250 prints from the Remondini Collections have been carefully examined and are now undergo conservation treatment which entails surface cleaning, the removal of old repairs or tapes, mending and filling of paper loss, maintenance of backings and mattes, and remounting with acid-free materials and techniques to safeguard the work for the future. A detailed photographic campaign was undertaken before conservation treatment began, documenting each print’s state of conservation, as well as original inscriptions, attributions, inventory numbers, and watermarks. This material will be made available for scholars to research and study. Photographs are also being taken of each print during and after treatment as a visual record for reference.

Andrea Mantegna (1430/31 – 1506) [designer]
Andrea Andreani (1558/59 – 1629) [printmaker]
The Triumph of Caesar
1599, woodcut
379 x 3800 mm

Jacopo de’ Barbari (1460/70 – 1516) [designer and printmaker]
View of Venice
1500, woodcut
1355 x 2785 mm

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475 – 1564) [designer]
Agostino Veneziano (c. 1490 – c. 1536) [printmaker]
Bathers from the Battle of Cascina (The Climbers)
1525, engraving
330 x 441 mm

Giorgione (1477/78 – 1510) [designer]
Giulio Campagnola (1482 – c. 1515/18) [printmaker]
Christ and the Woman of Samaria
1510-12, engraving
163 x 184 mm

Raphael (1483 – 1520) [designer]
Nicolò Boldrini (c. 1500 – c. 1566) [printmaker]
Hercules Strangling the Nemean Lion
1530 – 1550, woodcut
302 x 420 mm

Bonifacio de’ Pitati (1487 – 1553) [designer]
Anonymous [printmaker]
Tabula Cebetis
1540 – 1550, woodcut
525 x 785 mm

Titian (c. 1488/90 – 1576) [designer]
Ugo da Carpi (1470 – 1532) [printmaker]
The Sacrifice of Abraham
1500-1525, woodcut
795 x 1107 mm

Tintoretto (c. 1518/19 – 1594) [designer]
Agostino Carracci (1557 – 1602) [printmaker]
The Crucifixion
1580s, etching
515 x 1203 mm

Matteo Pagano (act. 1538 – 1562) [designer]
Anonymous [printmaker]
Procession of the Doge in the Piazza San Marco
1556-1561, woodcut
384 x 4020 mm

Palazzo Sturm, Museo della Stampa Remondini: Homepage

Atlante delle Xilografie italiane del Rinascimento: Homepage

Casarin, Chiara. Albrecht Dürer. La Collezione Remondini. In Casarin, Chiara, ed. Albrecht Dürer. La Collezione Remondini. Venice: Marsilio, 2019, pp. 7-13

Infelise, Mario and Paola Marini, eds. Remondini: un editore del Settecento. Milan: Electa, 1990

Passamani, Bruno. Guida al Museo Civico di Bassano. Bassano: Scrimin, 1975

Rigon, Fernando. Introduzione. In Dillon, Gianvittorio, ed. Nicolaes Berchem incisore e inventore, 1620-1683. Stampe dalla Collezione Remondini. Bassano: Vicenzi, 1981, pp. 5-8