Venetian School
17th/18th century
Battaglia dei Pugni, Ponte San Barnaba
oil on canvas
38 1/2 x 58in (97.8 x 147.3cm)
Footnote:
Beginning in the late 14th century and lasting until the early 18th century, staged battles or battagliola, consisted of factions of working men battering each other with wooden sticks in hours of chaotic melees.

The first mention of these Venetian stick battles dates from the late 14th century but they apparently did not begin to occur on bridges until the first quarter of the 15th century. The events were of such renown that the Venetian government arranged them for honored guests. In 1574 a bridge battle conducted by 600 Venetian artisans was arranged for the French King Henry III.

During the 16th and 17th centuries the spectacles grew in size and significance. Several times a year Venetian workers and tradesmen would gather on particular Sundays or holiday afternoons to fight for possession of a bridge. These organized encounters were also called battagliole sui ponti (little battles on the bridges). The battles would take several forms from individual duels and small-scale brawls for a few hundred or thousand onlookers to large scale displays prepared days in advance and held for hours in front of tens of thousands of spectators.

Ponte dei Pugni (Bridge of Fists) is considered one of the most famous "fighting bridges" in Venice, located near Campo San Barnaba in Dorsoduro.

The top of the bridge has the impression of four footprints, marking the starting position of the fighters when rival clans would gather to fight and throw each other in to the canal. The rivalry between the Nicolotti and the Castellani clans at the bridge dates back to the 14th century.

Framed 45.5 x 65 in. Canvas relined. With scattered areas of pigment craquelure, small cracks, and central vertical fold crease. Under UV light, evidence of extensive restoration with areas of inpainting and overpainting throughout, particularly to central figures, bridge, and large area of canal below.