nst the Pope, the emperor in Rome, and France and for the first time in its history found itself on the losing side in all these wars. Venice lost control of many of its territories in North Italy and found its continued existence threatened. Historical strife hardly destroyed Venice: "Tested on all fronts, Venice settled into the golden age of its culture with a more loyal subject population . . . and a confidence not only higher than ever but buttressed by the . . . admiration of other states." Venetians, however, had experienced their first significant tests of the republic's power and traditions, and the effects were felt most particularly in the arts and culture immediately following. One such result was that individuals began to earnestly commission painted altarpieces as a way of begging God's favor on the city. Humfrey observes, "The Venetian government had good reasons to encourage not only the regular attendance of its citizens at mass, but also the endowment of votive masses, and the maintenance of numerous chapels and altars." A census in 1581 recorded "seventy parish churches . . . and fifty-nine monasteries" in Venice, an exceptional number of spaces for public and private devotion in a city of this size. Venice's geography - spread out over numerous island clusters, some well connected by bridges and moats, others more isolated - encouraged individual neighborhoods to build their own churches and petition their own saints. Every church had an altar, and every altar needed an altarpiece. Rona Goffen observes, "Venetians responded to . . . military losses with a renewed Byzantism in arts and letters . . . publications . . . architecture . . . and in the painting of Giovanni Bellini. Art thus regained what had been lost in reality."
Strictly speaking, altarpieces are not an ecclesiastical necessity. Churches require an altar, but in the earlier centuries of Christianity altar decoration was considered...