Pietro Monaco Biography
Pietro Monaco (more properly Monego, also attested as Monacho; Belluno, 1707 – Venice, 9 June 1772) was an Italian engraver and mosaicist. Son of the carpenter Jacopo and Maria Panciera, he was born into a family originally from Fusine in Valzoldana. We do not know the precise date of his birth, but we know the day of his baptism, which took place on 22 September 1707. For a long time it was believed that he moved to Venice around 1732, after completing his apprenticeship on the mainland. More recent studies believe that he reached the lagoon between 1718 and 1722 where he was introduced to the art by his uncle Tommaso Monaco. Indeed, on the occasion of his marriage to Marina Giulia Crivellari (who bore him thirteen children) he declared that he had come to Venice as a child to be a boy. In 1732 he already appeared as an established engraver, so much so that he participated with thirty drawings in the re-edition of the first six volumes of Johann Georg Graeve's Thesaurus antiquatum Romanarum. In 1735, with the release of the next six volumes, he brought only four works, but forty-six more are attributed to him. In the same year he engraved the Portrait of Daniele Bragadin, prosecutor of San Marco. In 1737 he created the frontispiece of the Utriusque thesauri antiquitatum Romanarum Graecarumque nova supplementa by Giovanni Poleni, in which he represented, based on a design by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Minerva with a putto holding the shield. In 1738 he appears to be running his own shop in the San Leonardo district. In 1739 he sent the first engravings to print which would later be gathered together in the Collection of one hundred and twelve prints of paintings of sacred history, his most famous work. In 1744, spurred on by Giuseppe Zocchi, he created an engraving for the choice of XXIV views of the main districts, squares, churches and palaces of the city of Florence and another six for the Views of the villas and other places in Tuscany. In 1746 he published an enriched edition of the Raccolta. In the same year he created, based on drawings by Giuseppe Contenti, thirty cartoons for Jacopo Antonio Sanvitale's Poema parabolico. In 1748 he took part in the publication of the Historical Memoirs of the Great Dome of the Vatican Temple, edited by the Marquis Giovanni Poleni on commission from Pope Benedict XIV. Twenty-two of the engravings contained in Ecclesiae Venetae antiquis monumentis should be his, even if only one is signed. He also painted a portrait of Countess Paola Rubbi, based on a painting by Bartolomeo Nazari and published in 1750 in the Private misadventures of a woman of spirit. In 1751 he created the portrait of Ludovico Antonio Muratori for the Dissertations on Italian antiquities and that of Jacopo Sansovino (based on a design by Titian for the Life of M. Jacopo Sansovino. In the same period he began his collaboration with the painter Pietro Antonio Novelli: in 1753 he produced thirteen engravings based on his drawings (plus a fourteenth from Bartolomeo Nazari) for the blank verses of three excellent modern authors; nine other engravings are found in the Poetic Compositions on the occasion that the noble damsel Cecilia Barbaro wears the habit of Saint Benedict (published in 1787). Another engraving ended up in the Letter of our most holy Lord Benedict, Pope and monasteries of Venice, and of Torcello taken from Venetian churches, and Torcellane, published in 1758, presented some branches already present in Ecclesiae Venetae and seven other unpublished ones. In the same year he made twelve engravings for Venice, favored by Maria; the same, with 38 others of similar subject, were republished in 1761 in the historical news of the apparitions and of the most famous images of the Virgin Mary in the city and dominion of Venice. In 1763 he published the definitive edition of the Raccolta, with reproductions not only of ancient paintings, but also of contemporary ones such as those by Giovanni Battista Piazzetta, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Sebastiano Ricci, Giovanni Battista Pittoni and Angelo Trevisani. The ordering of the works is also original, based on the date of creation of the engraving and not on the biblical story. As evidenced by the letters with Count Giacomo Carrara, the Collection also served the Monaco to advertise his collection, as he was also an art dealer. In 1772, the day after his death, it was republished by Innocente Alessandri and Pietro Scattaglia; new editions were issued by Teodoro Viero (1789) and in Milan (around 1819-1822). In 1769 he created 21 signed branches for the Tabulae anatomicae of Bartolomeo Eustachi and some works for the poetic compositions written on the occasion of the wedding between the nobles Pier Girolamo Lion Cavazza and Isabella Gritti. In 1770 he designed the frontispiece of the Poetic Compositions written on the occasion of Elisabetta Astori's entry into the monastery of San Sepolcro. After his death, which occurred after two months of illness, some posthumous works were published, such as those included in the Portraits of the most famous painters of the ancient and modern Venetian school, again collected and published in 1787. He also tried his hand at ornamenting the peote, the boats festively decorated for city events. For example, on the occasion of the regatta organized for Edward Augustus of York (4 June 1764) he designed a vessel with the chariot of Venus pulled by four doves, while for the one in honor of Charles Eugene of Württemberg he designed an exotic-themed ship with the triumph of the Chinese emperor. In 1750 his candidacy as mosaicist for the Basilica of San Marco was accepted. On the following 6 September he was put to the test by presenting a small mosaic altarpiece with the Alms of Saint Anthony designed by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. He was also called upon to restore the Prophet Daniel above one of the entrances of the counter-façade (he left his signature there). Finally, in April 1751, he was hired, with his sons Giacomo and Girolamo as apprentices. On 21 August 1756 he was called to restore the mosaics of the cathedral of Torcello, while in 1757 he created a mosaic altarpiece with San Lorenzo Giustiniani in ecstasy, placed in Murano in the hospice for the widows of master glassmakers. From the aforementioned collaboration with Novelli, in 1766 he completed, based on his work, a mosaic altarpiece for the church of Santa Maria Nova. Between 1767 and 1769 there was an interruption in the work at San Marco which pushed him, for economic reasons, to dedicate himself with greater intensity to the activity of an engraver. He resumed in the late 1770s, but he died in 1772 leaving them unfinished.
