Prints of Venice normally bring to mind clichéd shots of Gondolas and Carnival marks but the Museo Correr has a serious collection of historic prints from the city’s galleries and museum.

Drawing upon normally unexhibited material from the museum’s collections – including its Cabinet of Drawings and Prints and Library of Venetian History and Art – this exhibition offers an insight into the history of printing and print-making in Venice. From the early Venetian followers of Gutenberg through the great German print maker Durer and right up to the nineteenth century, this fascinating story is told through printed volumes, individual prints, engravings, woodcuts and copperplates.

The exhibits include some rarities and curiosities which bear witness to the importance and variety publishing in Venice for nearly five hundred years. On display are illuminated medieval books or ‘codices’, sumptuous eighteenth-century volumes crammed with illustrations plus encyclopaedias and nineteenth-century illustrated newspapers.

Words and Images - Moments in the History of Printing and Print-making from the Museo Correr collection, Museo Correr, Piazza San Marco, until 11 March 2007