Mondo Novo fresco by Giandomenico Tiepolo

Giandomenico began as an assistant to his father Giambattista Tiepolo, a Venetian painter famous throughout Europe. Over time he worked alongside him on commissioned projects. With his first earnings the family purchased a villa in the countryside, a testament to the fame achieved by Giambattista. In March 1770 his father died and Giandomenico inherited the villa. He began to fresco it, decorating every wall not at the request of some aristocrat but purely for personal pleasure. The Mondo Novo is the protagonist of one of these walls, five meters wide and two meters high, located in the portico of the villa.

Today the work, dated 1791, is preserved in the Museum of the Venetian 18th Century at Ca' Rezzonico.

The painter's gaze tends to capture everyday life and takes part in a world of works that follow in the footsteps of Goya, who spoke of an art made for the court and an art that existed for oneself. Giandomenico Tiepolo uses figures to narrate a restless world.

He depicts a dense group of people seen from behind, crowding around an object … a wooden booth, a cosmorama. The cosmorama was an optical device that, through a system of mirrors, paintings, and projections, made it possible—by looking through a small opening—to immerse oneself in a landscape. Only a few years had passed since James Cook had circumnavigated the globe and discovered unexplored lands such as New Zealand and Australia. The explorer had brought with him a painter who, returning to London after a three-year journey, reproduced those places in prints that later circulated throughout Europe, conveying the image of distant and exotic lands such as Easter Island. Thus Giandomenico Tiepolo represents the scene.

The crowd is unaware of being observed. Slightly set apart, the first figure on the left is also Pulcinella. Each social class can be inferred from clothing, wigs, or the objects held in their hands. The public gathered in the square is guided by a man standing on a small stool. With a wooden plank he tries to direct the movements of those who wish to enjoy the spectacle, approaching the booth's window to observe. A father wearing a red garment lifts his child so that he may look inside the machine.

Why is a fresco from a private villa located in the Venetian museum of Ca' Rezzonico?

Between the late 19th century and the early 20th century, the name Tiepolo regained fame after a century of oblivion. The frescoes of various Venetian villas were detached in order to be sold. The news caused a scandal and the sale was blocked. The State and the municipality of Venice joined forces to purchase the frescoes from the antiquarian.

A crowd gathers around the spectacle provided by a mondo nuovo, an optical box in which a series of lenses gives perspectival depth, charm, and magic to painted or engraved images—mostly delicate views of cities and distant countries, rare and marvelous subjects, from which the name probably derives. The man standing on top of the stool controls the crowding. A second man, performing the same function, lifts a child from the ground to bring him closer to one of the viewing holes. Nearby, two figures with their heads covered by a zendale watch the spectacle. Giandomenico's attention to the mondo nuovo, which evidently impressed him greatly, seems to have strongly influenced his way of seeing.