Chapters

Save Venice has a thriving volunteer-run chapter in Boston, Massachusetts that organizes a robust program of activities each year. Every season kicks off with an Annual General Meeting in early autumn followed by three lectures in the spring. In recent years the Boston chapter has organized several fundraising benefits, which employ a unique theme related to Venice. For example, in 2017 the theme was “Sposalizio del Mare” (Marriage to the Sea), which took place on November 2nd at the Harvard Club, with proceeds supporting the restoration of Jacopo Tintoretto’s painting of Saint Jerome Presenting Doge Priuli to Justice and Peace from Venice’s Palazzo Ducale. The Boston chapter also co-organized a cocktail reception in 2020 with the Italian Consul General of Boston, and an excursion to the Mystic Seaport in 2022 to view an exhibition about Sargent, Whistler, and Murano glass. In December 2023 the Boston chapter will host a benefit concert focusing on Venetian composers.

The Boston Chapter has financed the conservation treatment of many of Venice’s artistic treasures, including major sections of the church of San Sebastiano, such as the Podocataro tomb, the ceiling canvas of the Triumph of Mordechai, the fresco of the Annunciation, and two side chapels. In 2021-22, the Boston Chapter raised funds to restore Palma II Giovane’s altarpiece; in 2022-23 it will conserve Antonio Corradini’s plaster bust Veiled Woman. Other treatments include Tintoretto’s Birth of John the Baptist in San Zaccaria and his altarpiece in San Marziale, tombstones in the Lido’s Jewish Cemetery, Guardi drawings in the Museo Correr, the wellhead in Corte Milion, and numerous paintings in the Gallerie dell’Accademia.

Bostonians were central to the international response to the floods in Italy of November 1966. Within the “Venice Committee” established by the International Fund for Monuments (IFM) in 1969, the New England Chapter was particularly active. Save Venice became an independent organization in 1971, chartered in Massachusetts by John McAndrew of Wellesley College, Sydney Freedbeg of Harvard University, and several colleagues. Rollin Hadley, Director of the Gardner Museum, became the first Chapter Chair in Boston and then succeeded McAndrew as the Chair of Save Venice in 1974. More recently, Frederick Ilchman of the Boston MFA served as Chapter Chair in Boston prior to becoming the Chairman of the Board of Save Venice in 2016.

Save Venice, Boston
P.O. Box 170302
Boston, MA 02117
svboston@savevenice.org

The California Chapter was formed in January 2000 to offer our friends on the West Coast a more active role in Save Venice’s preservation efforts. The Chapter was formed under the leadership of Terry Stanfill, who served as Chairman of the Venice Committee for Los Angeles of the International Fund for Monuments from 1967 to 1977, and who has been a Save Venice Board member since 1979.

The California Chapter has organized many successful events and raised money to underwrite major restorations in Venice, including Paolo Veronese’s painting of Vashti Banished from the church of San Sebastiano, the Lando Chapel in San Pietro di Castello, the sixteenth-century Monumental Arch in the public gardens of Castello, the outdoor relief of the Madonna and Child with Saint Peter on the Fondamenta Quintavalle in Castello, the façade of the Scuola Dalmata, called Scuola San Giorgio degli Schiavoni, the monument to Palma il Giovane in Santi Giovanni e Paolo, and the organ shutters of Saints Mark, Theodore, Francis, and Jerome by Gentile Bellini, from the Chiesetta San Teodoro in Basilica San Marco. Most recently, the chapter supported the restoration of paintings in the Saint Ursula Cycle by Vittore Carpaccio in the Gallerie dell’Accademia.