Zanetti, Antonio Maria [Alesandro], known as "the Younger." 

Date born: 1706

Place born:  Venice

Date died:  1778

Place died:  Venice

Historian of Venetian painting.  Zanetti began as a draftsman and artist, collaborating with his cousin, also called Anton Maria Zanetti, in illustrations for books.  In 1733 he adapted  Marco Boschini pictorial analysis of Venitian painting, Le ricche minere della pittura veneziana, (1674) into a new critical work, his Descrizione di tutte le pubbliche pitture della città di Venezia e isole circonvicine.  Emboldened by the success of this early work, he set about writing a large-scale account of the Venetian school, Della pittura veneziana e delle opere pubbliche de’ veneziani maestri (1771).  Zanetti conceived of art history through an Enlightenment attitude.  Descrizione begins with the "Primitives" of Italian art, moving quickly to the Renaissance artists of Venice.  He disparaged Mannerism, contrasting it to Venetian painting, and characterizing the former as leading him to the excesses of the baroque.  Zanetti was much admired by later art historians, particularly Luigi Lanzi (q.v.) who characterized Zanetti's text balanced and his historiography sound.  For most of his life, from 1737  onward, he was librarian of the Biblioteca Marciana, the library of S Marco in Venice. 

Home Country:  Italy (Venice)

Sources:  The Dictionary of Art

Bibliography:  Della pittura Veneziana e delle opere pubbliche de' Veneziani Maestri libri V. Venice:  S. Benedetto, 1771;  Descrizione di tutte le pubbliche pitture della città di Venezia. Venice: Presso P. Bassaglia, 1733.