Giovanni Bon
English
Giovanni Bon headed a family workshop that dominated Venetian Gothic building in the early fifteenth century, working with his son Bartolomeo. Family firms of this kind were the normal unit of construction in the period, and individual authorship inside them is often impossible to separate.
The workshop's principal work is the Porta della Carta, the ceremonial gateway between the Doge's Palace and the basilica, begun in 1438 — a late flowering of Venetian Gothic with tracery, statuary and a doge kneeling before the lion of St Mark.
He died around 1443. Dates and attributions for both Bons are uncertain, and much of the documentation treats the workshop as a single entity rather than naming individuals.
