Following the wonderful success of last winter’s online Art Talks, Dublin Decoded are delighted to offer our new series of Art Zoom Talks, starting Tuesday 4th January 2022.  With eight lavishly illustrated talks, featuring some of the most beautiful art and architecture from Italy, these online talks are an ideal Christmas present for the art-lover in your life. Even if that art-lover is yourself!

This year’s offering is a sort of virtual voyage around the great art cities of north-eastern Italy, exploring the gorgeous cities of Padua, Verona, Vicenza and Mantua, every one of which is studded with Roman, Medieval, Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, Mannerist and Baroque art treasures.

Over 8 weekly talks on Zoom, we will travel to and learn about the great palaces, churches, chapels, basilicas and museums of the region, exploring a dazzling range of frescoes, altarpieces, portraits and other paintings, historic sculpture and architecture.  Each talk is around 60 minutes long.  There will also be an extra (purely optional) informal 10-15 minute Q&A chat after each session, for those who wish to stay on to ask questions or make observations. Each talk is also recorded and every recording is automatically made available to each and every ticket-holder, with links to the video sent out within 24 hours of the live talks.

Our journey ranges from the seminal frescoes of Giotto Bordone of the early 1300s, through the colossal achievements of sculptor Donatello, painters like Pisanello, Titian, Bellini and Mantegna, to the hugely influential architecture of late Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio.

All along the way we’ll encounter painters like Tintoretto, Titian, Paolo Veronese, Longhi, Tiepolo, Guardi, Ricci, Rubens, Andrea Mantegna and the remarkable Bellini family.  We will catch fleeting, yet telling glimpses of legends like Michelangelo, Raphael and Leonardo.  We shall also discover, perhaps for the first time, a handful of lesser-known yet superb, highly significant artists and artworks from the region, all helping shed light and insight into this Paradise of Art.

We will even see how, on a number of occasions, the historic art and architecture of this region exercises an enormous influence on our own visual culture and built environment, right here at home, with direct like-for-like examples of how Italian architecture of the 1500s exerts an extraordinary and very direct influence on Irish Georgian architecture of the 1700s.

Italy has more officially recognised UNESCO world heritage sites than any other place on earth.  Even within this eye-watering patrimony, there is a preponderance of treasures in the Northern part of the country.

We will leave Florence, Siena, Rome, Naples and Sicily to future talks.  For now, it is time to discover the art of the Italian North-East.  

8 talks in total.
Course break-down below.
Talks 1-4 run at 2pm live each Tuesday afternoon from 4th to 28th January.
Talks 5-8 run at 2pm live each Tuesday afternoon from 8th February to 1st March.  (Please note there will be no talk on Tuesday 1st February).

As with last year, every talk is recorded and a link to the recorded version will be sent out to all ticket-holders, usually within 24 hours of the talk.

Buying tickets

Talks may be purchased either individually, or in a block of 4, or as a block of all 8 talks.

8-in-1 block ticket:  for the entire course of talks now available at €100 plus booking fee.  These 8-in-1 tickets now available here until lunchtime on Monday the 3rd of January only. (That is to say until 24 hours prior to the first talk, the next day).

Please note it will not be possible to purchase 8-in-1 tickets after this point.

4-in-1 block ticket (for Talks 1 to 4) are also available here at €50 + booking fee.

Gifting options Good Christmas News: gifting options now available!
The 8-in-1 block ticket and the 4-in-1 block ticket (Talks 1 to 4) can be purchased as gifts.  Just tick the check box on the online purchase page, then fill in the name and email address for your intended recipient! Please make sure you get their email address correct!

Individual tickets, for individual talks, may be purchased via the green “Book Now” button onscreen on our other website dublindecoded.com   Hit the green “Book Now” button; select Art Talks, then select the block ticket, or the individual talk ticket, you wish to purchase.

Please note: all tickets must be purchased a minimum of 24 hours prior to the talks.  Last purchases of block tickets: 2pm on Monday 3rd January at the latest.

Talks overview (all talks live at 2pm)

Tuesday 4 January
Talk 1 – Giotto, his contemporaries, influence and his context in the Italian North-East.

Tues 11 January
Talk 2 – Visiting and exploring the art and architecture of the city of Verona: Churches, frescoes and great gothic tombs.

Tues 18 January
Talk 3 – The art and architecture of the Museum Castelvecchio at Verona: Titian, Veronese, Tiepolo, Bellini, Rubens and others.   

Tues 25 January
Talk 4 – The art and architecture of the city of Padua, its basilica and the great equestrian sculpture of Donatello.

One Week Break: No Talk Tuesday 01 February

Tues 8 February
Talk 5 – the Palaces of Mantua 1: The Gonzaga family, and the genius of Andrea Mantegna at the Palazzo Ducale.  

Tues 15 February
Talk 6 – the Palaces of Mantua 2: Understanding Mannerism and its links to Raphael and Michelangelo; Giulio Romano and his Palazzo Te

Tues 22 February
Talk 7 – The architecture of Andrea Palladio in his native city of Vicenza: Theatre, Villas, Churches and Palazzi.

Tues 01 March
Talk 8 – Andrea Palladio and his foundations for Irish Georgian architecture.   

Please note that all tickets are valid for both live Zoom and recorded versions.  Ticket holders will receive separate emails containing links to the live Zoom and recorded versions.

We look forward to seeing some of you art lovers in early January.

It’s going to be a treat!

Top image: your speaker, Arran Henderson, outside the Basilica of St Anthony in Padua with Donatello’s famous equestrian statue in the background. Images below: 3 details from Andrea Mantegna’s legendary fresco in the Camera Sposi, in the Palazzo Ducale, Mantua; and a model of Andrea Palladio’s Villa Rotunda, Vicenza; a details from an altarpiece by Liberale da Verona; and (last image below) Giotto’s seminal frescoes at the Arena chapel in Padua .