Giambattista Brustolon (1712 - 1796). Giambattista Brustolon was an Italian engraver in Venice. The rare biographical notes of Giambattista Brustolon come from his works. He was the son of Gioata Brustolon, native of Belluno. From 1739 Giambattista was in the engraving workshop of Giuseppe Wagner, who was on of the most important Venetian engravers of the time. On behalf of the print dealer and publisher Lodovico Furlanetto, the painter Canaletto made twelve drawings of traditional Venetian festivals in pen, brown ink and gray watercolor known as the Dogal Solemnity and which were engraved between 1766 and 1768 by Giambattista Brustolon, who proved a refined interpreter of 18th-century Venetian art. These engravings were later turned into paintings by Francesco Guardi. The Dogal Solemnity celebrated the election, in 1763, of Doge Alvise IV Mocenigo. Among this series of engravings of Venetian feasts made by Brustolon were the Doge thanks the Major Council, Coronation of the Doge, Marriage of the Sea, Feast of the Salute, the Doge of Venice attends the feasts of Shrove Thursday on the Piazzetta, the Doge offers lunch to the ambassadors, the Doge in Piazza San Marco gives money to the people, Corpus Domini procession, the Doge on the Bucintoro and Departure of the Bucintoro for San Nicolo from Lido on the day of the Ascension. The Correr Museum holds all the twelve engravings of Brustolon, but this museum has only ten of the twelve plates engraved by Brustolon. These plates were reprinted because the privilege had expired. Around 1791 the edition with the titles in French appeared. Giambattista Brustolon engraved portraits, including that of the writer Elisabetta Caminer Turra and Michele Maria Capece Galeota. He made other portraits by engraving for Venetian publications, including those of Pope Benedict XIV, Voltaire, the architects Vincenzo Scamozzi and Andrea Palladio, the cardinal and Saint Gregory Barbarigo. He also engraved some editorial marks in intaglio for frontispiece. From 1752 to 1756 he made the decoration for the new Venetian edition of Rime de Petrarque, six engravings for each volume, in addition to the half-title. He drew engravings from an album of watercolors, paintings and drawings by Canaletto; he engraved the Views of Rome, including the View of St. John's Square in Laterano with the obelisk in the foreground, the Mausoleum of Caius Sextius at Porta Ostiense, the Arch of Janus at San Giorgio in Velabro, Vatican Basilica and Castel Sant'Angelo and the Temple of Saturn in Campo Vaccino. Two editions came out, one with French titles. A large selection of these Roman engravings can be found in Milan, in the Bertarelli Collection, at the Castello Sforzesco. His son Giandomenico Brustolon was a priest and writer.
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