Acknowledgments
This book originated in a conference held in Venice at the Scuola Grande di San Rocco and at the Salone da Ballo of the Correr Museum, 27–29 April 2016. It was organized by the Venice Committee of the Società Dante Alighieri together with The Graduate Center, City University of New York. Our thanks go first and foremost to the Guardian Grando of the Scuola Grande di San Rocco, Franco Posocco, for hosting the conference among the marvellous Tintoretto paintings in the Scuola Grande di San Rocco, to the Vicario of the Scuola, Demetrio Sonaglioni, and to the Procuratrice of the Scuola, Maria Agnese Chiari Moretto Wiel; to the President of the Musei Civici di Venezia (MuVe), Mariacristina Gribaudi, and to its Director, Gabriella Belli, for receiving us in the Sala da Ballo of the Correr Museum. We would also like to thank Thomas Callegaro of the Scuola Grande di San Rocco for his help collating the images. The conference would not have been possible without a grant from the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation through Save Venice Inc., whose Venice Director, Melissa Conn, also received us at the Rosand Library. We are also grateful to Arch. Ettore Vio, former proto of the Basilica, for an unforgettable visit to the Basilica di San Marco, which we entered in total darkness and then saw in all its golden light. We would also like to thank the Secretary General of the Società Dante Alighieri, Alessandro Masi, for participating to the welcome addresses together with the Guardian Grando, the President and the Director of MuVe, and with the President of the Amici dei Musei, Paolo Trentinaglia de Daverio. Several scholars chaired the different sessions, making them lively with their comments: we would like to thank Gabriella Belli, for her lively introduction to the works; Paola Marini, Director of the Gallerie dell’Accademia; Philip Rylands, Director of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection; Renata Codello, General Secretary for MiBact for the Veneto region; Ileana Chiappini di Sorio, art historian; and Daniela Ciani, Pia Masiero, and Simone Francescato, Americanists of the University of Venice, Ca’ Foscari. We thank for their papers Giovanni Carlo Federico Villa, professor of art history at the University of Bergamo; Andrea Bellieni, Director of the Correr Museum; Gianfranco Pocobene, of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum; and Jean Pavans, the most important translator of Henry James in France: for various reasons their papers could not be included in this volume. Finally, we would like to thank Pier Giovanni Possamai, of the University of Venice Ca’ Foscari, for understanding immediately what the conference was about and therefore suggesting the telling image on the cover of this book.