“The Corner family in the Early Modern period: Identity, culture, architecture” organised by Deborah Howard and Gianmario Guidarelli.

The illustrious Corner family was one of the so-called case vecchie of the Venetian patrician class. Already by the fourteenth century the Corner were rich and powerful, thanks to revenues from the cultivation of sugar on their estates in Cyprus. In 1489 Giorgio Corner, considered the richest man in Venice, persuaded his sister Caterina, the last queen of Cyprus, to abdicate and hand over the island to the Venetian Republic. The family retained its own interests in Cyprus, in addition to a series of feudal possessions in other parts of the Adriatic. The Corner family thus came to occupy an almost royal status within the Republic, a position that required careful cultural and political management. Sustained by their great wealth and political and religious affiliations, the Corner embarked on ambitious artistic and architectural projects. In Venice alone, following the two disastrous fires of 1532 and 1535, the heirs of Giorgio Corner commissioned palaces from Jacopo Sansovino (at San Maurizio), from Michele Sanmicheli (at San Polo and in the modification of Ca’ Lando on the Grand Canal). On the Terraferma, Andrea Palladio designed the villa Corner at Piombino Dese. Later, in the eighteenth century, the heirs of Caterina, known as the “della Regina” branch, commissioned from Domenico Rossi their own grandiose palace on the Grand Canal. This conference will attempt to throw new light on the architectural and artistic patronage of the family in all the contexts in which they operated: in the cities of Venice and Rome, on the terraferma, in the Adriatic and in Cyprus.

PROGRAM

14 january, Padova, aula magna di Ingegneria (via Loredan, 20)
I SESSION, Identità di una famiglia I (chair Paola Marini, Comitati Privati per Venezia), 9.45-13.00

9.45-10.00, welcome.
10.00-10.20, Deborah Howard (University of Cambridge), Gianmario Guidarelli (Università degli studi di Padova), Introduction.
10.20-10.45, Georgios Markou (Cyprus University of Technology), “Venetian Vision - Cypriot Legacy: Reconsidering the Portraits of Caterina Corner”.
10.45-11.10, Matteo Ceriana, “La Cappella Corner ai SS. Apostoli”.
11.10-11.25, break.
11.25-11.50, Deborah Howard (University of Cambridge), “La ‘fraterna’ dei figli di Zorzi Corner”.
11.50-12.15, Rachel Healy (Trinity College Dublin and Research Ireland Postdoctoral Fellow). “Ritratti di Zorzi Corner”.
12.15-12.40, Michel Hochmann (Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris), Considerazioni sul gusto romanista dei Corner durante il Cinquecento.
12.40-13.00, discussion
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II SESSION, Identità di una famiglia II (chair Elena Svalduz, Università degli studi di Padova), 14.30-17.15
14.30-14.55, Paul Davies (University of Reading), “Jacopo Sansovino at Palazzo Corner: identity and decorum in the use of the orders”.
14.55-15.20, Martina Frank (Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia), Amos Mettifogo (Centro Studi RiVe Università Ca' Foscari Venezia/Università degli Studi di Udine), “Le residenze suburbane dei Cornaro a Murano”.
15.20-15.45, Fulvio Lenzo (Università Iuav di Venezia), “L'architettura di Ca' Corner della Regina”
15.45-16.00, break.
16.00-16.25, Benjamin Arbel (Tel Aviv University), “Three Patrician families in Cyprus: Corner Piscopia, Corner “della Regina” and Contarini dal Zaffo”.
16.25-16.50, Carol Richardson (University of Edinburgh), “The Corner Cardinals in the Sixteenth Century”.
16.50-17.15, discussion.
17.15-17.30, break
17.30-18.10, KEYNOTE, William Barcham (New York Fashion Institute of Technology)
“‘Si sono voluti distinguere in modo dal comune’, Public Commissions by the Corner Family in Venice and Rome”

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16 january 2026, Vicenza, Palladio Museum (contrà Porti, 11)
III SESSION, Tra Venezia e la Terraferma, (chair Guido Beltramini, Palladio Museum), 9.45- 12.10.
9.45-10.00, Welcome.
10.00-10.25, Gianmario Guidarelli (Università degli studi di Padova), "L’architettura di ca’ Corner a San Polo".
10.25-10.50, Giulio Manieri Elia (Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venezia), "Vasari a Ca' Corner-Spinelli".
10.50-11.05, break.
11.05-11.30, David Hemsoll (University of Birmingham), "The Villa Corner and Palladio’s ‘true architecture’".
11.30-11.55, Stefano Zaggia (Università degli studi di Padova), "Il Paradiso Corner: lo scomparso complesso di villa a Castelfranco Veneto. Architetture, giardini e progetti, da Scamozzi a Preti".
11.55-12.10, discussion.