Grimani family

Long in the library of San Marco and the Biblioteca Marciana, Venice, this breviary is a key work in the late history of Flemish illuminated manuscripts.

Several leading artists, including Simon Bening, the Master of James IV of Scotland and Gerard David, contributed some of their finest work to it.

[4] All the main Venetian theatres were owned by important patrician families; combining business with pleasure in the Italian, if not European, city with the most crowded and competitive theatrical culture.

When most opera in Europe was still being put on by courts, "economic prospects and a desire for exhibitionistic display", as well a decline in their traditional overseas trading, attracted the best Venetian families to invest in the theatre during the 17th century.

[6] In the age of Carlo Goldoni, the greatest Venetian dramatist, only the San Luca and the Malibran still put on spoken drama, and his desertion of the Grimani for the Vendramins at San Luca in 1752 was a major event in the theatrical history of the period, ushering in perhaps his finest period, in which as well as his comedies, he played a significant role in the development of the opera buffa.