Navigating Seventeenth-Century Venetian Art History: Language, Place, and Alchemy in Marco Boschini’s La Carta del Navegar Pitoresco

This article analyzes the literary and art historical choices made by Marco Boschini (1602-1681) in his Carta del Navegar Pitoresco (Venice, 1660). It places the author and his work in the cultural context of the two eminent Venetian literary academies with which he was affiliated, namely the Accademia Delfica and the Accademia de’ Incogniti. A painter, engraver, cartographer, and vendor of glass pearls, Boschini embodied the hybrid intellectual culture associated with such institutions in seventeenth-century Italy. Among other things, this culture was reflected in his decision to write the Carta in the Venetian vernacular and to engage with disciplines such as literature and alchemy. The work therefore provides an ideal vehicle for investigating the influence of literary academies on early modern intellectual culture.